LIBRARY. OF CONGRESS. 

3TTOX^ 

UNITED STATES OE AMERICA. 



GOD IN CREATION 



AND IN 



WORSHIP. 



" We are His Offspring." 



BY 

A CLERGYMAN 



s 






NEW YORK : 
AT THE BOOKSTORES 



.CI 



Copyright, 

1887, 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



(Y 



PBEFAOE. 

The author aims to show that the early historic 
peoples believed in " One God Almighty, Maker of 
heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible ;" 
that their records and traditions indicate belief that 
matter and spirit, good and bad, were from God. 

Somehow in feeling after Him mankind learned to 
worship Him ; before they adored any lesser beings they 
adored Him, now with prayer and sacrifice, now in the 
open sky and in public assemblies, now in temples con- 
secrated to Him ; and the heavenly bodies became sym- 
bols of Him. There was sequence in all this, but no 
evolution without intelligence. The method is chiefly 
synthetical, based upon established facts of ancient 
history. It is considered unanswerable. The worship 
of Abel, Seth, Enoch, Noah, Nirurod, Melchisedec, 
Jethro, Moses, cannot be explained, except by Divine 
instruction to mankind. The brick inscriptions of 
Babylon and Nineveh and the records of old Egypt are 
found to corroborate the narratives in Genesis and 
Exodus. A voice is now heard from those countries, 
which for twenty centuries had been silent. Being 
vocal, its utterances demand consideration. Hence 
some of those recorded utterances have been compared 
with the Pentateuch and with Mr. Spencer's " Ecclesi- 
astical Institutions/ 7 for the purpose of showing the 
primitive belief of mankind, and that no theory of de- 
velopment or law of evolution or science of nature ade- 
quately explains that ancient belief and worship. 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 

I. CHRISTIANITY NOT EVOLVED FEOM GHOSTS AND 
HERO-WORSHIP. 

SUMMARY : Evolution Dispboved by Egyptian Histoby. — 
Remains of Temples Oldeb than of Tombs. — Babil. — Tomb of 
Cyeus. — Of Napoleon I. — Egyptian Gods not Deified Men. 
— Persian Altabs Centueies befobe Pebsian Temples.— The 
Druids and C^sae. — Pebsian Iconoclasts. — Buening the 
Dead. — Jehovah has no Peee ob Paballel. — Hebeew Re- 
ligion Pbepabatoby. — Its End Detebmined. — Isaiah and Di- 
vine Instbuction. — Abeaham, Chedoelaomee, Melchisedec, 
Jethbo. — From the Simple to the Complex. — Peevalence of 
Religious Feeling. — Temple of Nimeod, but no Tomb. — 
Ancient Facts Withstand Modebn Ceiticism. — Mb. Spencer 
Misquotes a Prophet and Misrepresents Hebbew Theology. 
— Moses and Samuel. — Balaam and the Necbomancees. — 
Peactices not Peescbibed by Moses. — Pbepabation foe the 
Coming One. — Attila vs. Evolution. — Taetae Customs. — Con- 
clusion. 



II. GOD IN CREATION AND IN WORSHIP. 

SUMMARY : Science cannot Explain Nature, only Phenomema. 
— " A Caepentee-Liee Theoby." — Man's Limitations. — Skill 
and Intelligence. — Within Histoeic Times no New Products 
of Nature. — Necessity of a Cbeatoe, — Cbeation and Con- 
sequence. — Matteb does not Change Itself. — Like fbom 
Like. — Peotoplasm Consideeed. — Science cannot Explain 
Peotoplastic Life. — A Cbeatoe Necessaby. — The Mind a 
Real Entity. — The Ghost Theoby Unhistobical. — Cain and 
Abel. — Belief of Mankind. — Plea of St. Athanagobas {note). 



VI CONTENTS. 

— Anthropomorphic Errors. — Mr. Burroughs and Talley- 
rand's Jest. — Views of Creation, of Sabbath and Worship in 
Egypt and Babylon. — Embalming a Consequence, not the 
Cause of Belief. — Egyptian Knowledge of God. — Ritual of 
the Dead. — God in Babylonia. — Saints' Calendar. — Sabbaths. 
— Polytheism a Development. — A Supreme God the Primary 
Belief. — Temples for Worship before Sepulchres. — Re- 
ligion Pure at First. — The Vedic Gods. — Religious Teachers 
Reformers. — China Originally Monotheistic. — Confucius, — 
Mencius. — Testimony of Missionaries. — Primitive Belief and 
Worship. — Noah's Sacrifice in Chaldean Records. — Jesus 
Christ not a Hebrew Ghost. — Kepler's Prayer. — Ascrip- 
tion or Psalmist and Apostle. 



III. LEGENDS ABOUT GOD AND CREATION. 

SUMMARY: The Egyptian "Nuk Pu Nuk. ,; — Inscription on 
Temple of Sais. — Oldest Legend in Literature. — Amun and 
Maut. — Zeus. — Accadian Legends, Age and Character. — 
Prized by Assyrians. — Seventh Creation Tablet. — Creative 
Gods. — Fifth Tablet. — Bel and Hea.— Creation of Man. — 
His Instruction and his Punishment. — Difference of Genesis 
and the Bricks. — Rig Veda. — The Self God Atman. — Deluge 
in Genesis and Chaldea. — Hebrew Prophets Guardians and 
Writers of Scripture. — Chaldean Deity Blesses and Curses 
Newly Created Man. — Tree of Life. — Cherubim and the 
Serpent. — Sin of Zu. — Pestilence. — Cutha Legend of De- 
struction, also the Hindus. — Mythological Account of Cre- 
ation. — Aratus. — Providence. — Babylonian Theories. — First 
Creation Tablet. — Fifth Creation Tablet. — -The Seventh 
Day a Holy Day — One Supreme God in India. — Polytheism 
Later. — Max Muller, Plato, Aristotle, Aratus, Vedic Poet. 
— View of Ethnic Affinity. — Evidential Value of Legends. 
— Their Lessons. — God Immutable. 



IV. LEGENDS ABOUT SATAN AND EVIL SPIRITS. 

SUMMARY : General Belief in. — Satan in Babylonia. — Rebel 
Angels Shouting Blasphemies. — Their Leader Dragon, Tia- 



CONTENTS. Vli 

MAT OR TYPHO, EVER A MlSCHIEF-MAKER. — HoRUS DEFEATS HIM. 

— His Evil Doings, how Regarded. — His Emblems, his Wor- 
ship, Plutarch's Testimony. — Graphically Represented in 
Chaldean Records. — Seduces 1000 Angels in Heaven and 
Fights against Bel, who Destroys htm with a Blazing 
Thunderbolt. — Spirits op Evil Survive this Defeat ; Ex- 
pelled from Heaven. — Ahriman and Demiurgus.— Fallen 
Spirits on Earth.— Spirits of Heaven Invoked against them. 
— Accadian Poem on the Se^ven. — 600 Spirits of Earth In- 
voked. — Jesus Alone Taught their Overthrow. — Origen's 
Hope of their Repentance and Restoration. — The Infernal 
Regions Taught as Explicitly as the Abode of Happiness for 
Just Men. 

CONCLUSION. 

MONOTHEISM OF PHOENICIANS. — LENORMANT's TESTIMONY. — IDEAS OF 

HEAVEN. 



r. 



CHRISTIANITY NOT EVOLVED FROM 
GHOSTS AND HERO-WORSHIP. 

The} 7, shall be ashamed who serve a graven image, who boast 
themselves in idols ; worship Him, all ye gods. For Thou, Jehovah, 
art most high above all the earth ; greatly hast Thou been exalted 
above all gods. Say ye among the gentiles, Jehovah reigneth ; 
fear before Him all the earth. (Ps. 97 : 7, 9 ; 96 : 9, 10.) Thou 
shalt have no other gods before Me : thou shalt not bow down to 
them, nor serve them. . . . Thou shalt break down their images. 
(Ex. 20 : 3, 5 ; 23, 24.) " Jehovah was originally one God among 
many ! With the Hebrews, as with the Egyptians and numer- 
ous other peoples, a god simply meant a powerful being. 
Abraham was a demigod to whom prayers were addressed. The 
god of Israel was clearly a local god. The command in Ex. 20 : 3 
did not imply that there were no other gods, but that the Israel- 
ites were not to recognize their authority !" (Herbert Spencer, 
" Ecclesiastical Institutions, " pp. 696, 697.) 

There is in Mr. Spencer's book on "Ecclesiastical 
Institutions" just that which makes one, who does not 
scrutinize his reasonings, tremble, like Eli of old time, 
for the Ark of God. He masses together so many facts 
and inferences, so many names and nationalities, with 
such a sweep of history and ethnology, as almost to in- 
timidate one. But he makes many serious omissions. 

Since he quotes Mr. Kenrick's "Ancient Egypt," 
I refer him to page 295 of vol. i., where that author 
says : " There is nothing in history or in the monu- 
1* 



10 GOD IN CREATION. 

ments which indicates that the gods of Egypt were 
really deified men." Again, at page 65, of vol. ii. : 
u In the history of Diodorus we perceive two changes 
which had taken place since the time of Herodotus, who 
represents the gods of Egypt as wholly distinct from 
men. But in the interval between Herodotus and Di- 
odorus the opinion had sprung up among the Greeks 
that the gods had been illustrious chiefs and warriors, 
inventors and improvers of the arts and sciences, raised 
to the rank of divinity through the admiration and 
gratitude of mankind." From this later view Mr. 
Spencer has evolved his theory ; but it is a view much 
too recent ; a theory without adequate support. We 
must go back one or two thousand years before Herod- 
otus and before Moses. Says Colonel Rawlinson :* 
" All the kings whose monuments are found in ancient 
Chaldea used the same language, professed the same 
religion, and followed the same traditions ; temples 
built in the earliest times receive the veneration of suc- 
cessive generations, and were repaired and adorned by 
a long series of monarchs, even down to the time of the 
Semite Nabonidus," five hundred years before Di- 
odorus. 

1. Now every reader knows that a historic statement 
may be true, yet very false inferences may be drawn 
from it. This, I venture to suggest, is the case with 
Mr. Spencer. He is too precipitate with his inferences 
and assumptions. He is also historically wrong in say- 
ing that belief in ghosts and the worship of them were 
before belief in God — One Supreme Creator of all beside 
— and the worship of Him. For the remains of tem- 
ples in Babylonia are earlier by one to two thousand 

Ad Herodotus," vol. i., p. 352. 



GOB IN CREATION. 11 

years than the remains of tombs ; while in Assyria there 
are no remains of any tombs of an early date — at least, 
so far as yet known. Hence tombs could not have been 
the models of early temples in Babylonia and Assyria. 
Not one has yet been found to answer this claim. 

Confessedly the temple Babil was the most ancient 
of any erected on the Euphrates ; yet it was erected by 
the first great Babylonian hero during his lifetime. 
The remains of that temple were reconstructed by Neb- 
uchadnezzar into another on the same spot to that mon- 
arch' s god. Cyrus the Great may have seen this tem- 
ple, and have worshipped in it ; its architecture may 
have suggested that of his own tomb at PasargadaB ; 
but no man of repute, out of Persia, where they had no 
temples till about five centuries before our era, will pre- 
tend that that tomb, or any like it, was earlier than the 
first known temple. Just as well might coming genera- 
tions affirm that Napoleon I. was a distinguished bishop, 
because at Paris, his capital or see city, his tomb is the 
chief attraction in a large church, having a gorgeous 
altar in it. Ebrard ascribes to Nimrod the character 
of a true worshipper of Jahveh, and the building of a 
temple to Him. Also G. Smith's Chaldean Account. 

2. Perhaps this same illustration may suggest the true 
answer to the complex state of religious ideas and of 
worship which we find among early Semitic and Hamit- 
ic peoples. Study of the heavenly bodies, especially 
the sun and rnoon, lord of day and queen of night, led 
them to think of them as gods, or as representing the 
Good Being. So Egyptians came to regard the Nile, to 
whose overflowing waters, indeed, they owed the pro- 
duce of the soil. From the source of earthly good in 
sun or stream, parent or hero, it became easy and nat- 
ural to proceed further, lower or higher, and to regard 



12 GOT) IN CREATION. 

eacli such benefactor as god for them. It were easy so 
to infer, and it is easy so to assume. But, as Mr. Ken- 
rick says, " there is nothing in history or in the monu- 
ments which indicates that the gods of Egypt were 
really deified men." For back of them there were ideas 
and usages which cannot be so explained. There are 
qualities and properties originally ascribed to II or Ilou 
and to Ka which cannot be so accounted for ; much 
less the El or Elohim of Israel and the Jah or Jehovah 
of the Hebrew Covenant. The embalming of the bodies 
of Egyptian dead, placing them at table on festal occa- 
sions, and the affectionate regard which they ever cher- 
ished for their deceased kindred, is conclusive evidence 
that they had no terrors about their ghosts troubling 
them again. And even their kings were to undergo the 
judgment of Amenti after death ; which shows that 
they were not then deified. It is certain that Egyptians 
did not evolve their divinities from heroes, nor their 
worship from ghostly fears. 

3. It will hardly be pretended that the fire- worship- 
ping Asiatics and those who burnt the bodies of their 
dead derived their ideas and practices from the same 
origin, and developed them in the same way, as the Baby- 
lonians, Egyptians, and Peruvians ! Surely a fire-altar 
in the open air, with or without a ministering priest, 
among a people who had no burial rites, no urns, no 
sepulchres, is not likely to have been evolved from a 
grave mound ! At any rate, the minds of many edu- 
cated men can see no logical connection in the evolution 
of ghost-worship and of fire-worship ; between the rites 
of Greeks and Hindus ; they are not to be accounted 
for upon the same hypothesis. What ancient graves re- 
main, what old temple memorials exist to perpetuate 
the religiousness of self-immolating devotees of India ? 



GOT) IN CREATION. 13 

And the same may be said of the Parsees. Indeed, there 
are myriads of facts to be accounted for, and groups of 
peoples to be named, whose religious ideas and practices 
are independent of any connection with grave, ghost, 
or hero, yet whose religiousness is as manifest as that 
of any Christian nation. Mr. Spencer is, therefore, too 
narrow in his history and too sweeping in his inferences 
to stand against these peoples, whose religious feeling or 
sentiment, if not God-given, must be explained in some 
other way than by mummy-case, burial mound, depart- 
ed friend, or national benefactor. 

4. The old Druids of Gaul and Briton, who made 
temples of forests and shrines of caverns ; who taught 
that there was an eternal life for man, seem not to be 
in the line of Mr. Spencer's evolutionary theory ; for 
long ages before they were visited by Julius Caesar, be- 
fore their first known hero had appeared, when they 
cremated their dead, together with all they had loved 
in life, Gauls and Britons had used their groves for tem- 
ples, and worshipped the Divine Being in deep recesses 
of the earth. It was a worship before the building of a 
grave mound, and in God-made temples. Clearly, their 
reverence for the mysterious Being whom they feared 
and adored was not derived from their worship of an- 
cestors, to whom they did not pray. It is " not his- 
toric'' to mix up the Norsemen of later times with 
ancient Gauls and their cousins of ancient Britain. 
Caesar's Commentaries are the highest authority we 
have, or can have, for the religious rites and teachings 
of the Druids ; yet I fail to find Mr. Spencer once re- 
ferring to him in " Ecclesiastical Institutions." * 

Moreover, the Persians and others, numbering many 

* See " De Bello Gallico," 1. 5, cap. 12 and 13 ; 1. 6, cap. 13-19. 



1-4 GOD IN CREATION. 

millions of Asiatics of the great Aryan family, had a 
priesthood without a temple, altars without a victim for 
centuries, and heroes without a grave mound. They 
had the simplest form of burial and commemorative 
rites. The believers in Ormazd believed not in ghosts — 
at least, in no Spencerian sense. Indeed, the ancient and 
pure Zoroastrians and the primitive Hindus, with many 
millions of Buddhists, have yet to be accounted for by 
Mr. Spencer. 

5. Nor does his attempted explanation explain the 
iconoclasts of history, from the golden calves which 
Moses broke to the Egyptian idols which Cambyses 
broke, and the intolerant monotheism of Mahomet and 
his followers. Herodotus tells us how the son of the 
Great Cyrus treated Egyptian mummies : how he entered 
royal sepulchres, tore off the wrappings of the embalmed, 
and offered nameless indignities to the dead. Not con- 
tent with this, he demolished the statues and images of 
the gods, and defied their power to injure him. Ac- 
cording to Plutarch, he slew the living Apis outright, 
and gave his flesh to the dogs. He also burned several 
idolatrous temples. Other Persian kings pursued a sim- 
ilar course of religious persecution, and while conquer- 
ing the country, they punished polytheists for their 
idolatry. The great Darius, illustrious for his organiz- 
ing ability, is said to have summoned the Oallatian Ind- 
ians before him, and inquired of them for what con- 
sideration they would agree to burn the bodies of their 
parents—which they were accustomed to eat ; but with 
a loud outcry they begged him not to shock their ears 
with such horrid proposals. They could eat the dead 
corpses, but could not consent to burn them,* like 

* See Kenrick's " Egypt," vol. ii., pp. 394, 395. 



GOD IN CREATION. 15 

Britons and Gauls, Persians and Hindus. Late ac- 
counts show that the Indians of Sitka burn the bodies 
of their dead — New York Times, September 20th, 1886. 
From such illustrations of national customs we see that 
the groups of facts which Mr. Spencer gives us may 
be paralleled with other groups of equally striking 
facts, which necessitate different conclusions and infer- 
ences ; all showing the very general prevalence of belief 
in a Supreme Creator and Ruler of the universe ; and 
that belief in Him and the practice of His worship can- 
not be evolved from hero or from ancestor worship, nor 
from any burial rites or propitiation of ghosts. Thus 
teaches universal mankind in the earliest ages. 

6. Mr. Spencer errs in attempting to parallel the 
covenant religion of the Hebrews with that of other na- 
tions. There was, there is, no parallel between them, 
unless we admit a divine origination common to all. 
If we allow that the Egyptian Ra also symbolizes the 
Hebrew Jah, and the Babylonian and Assyrian II or 
Ilou symbolizes the Hebrew El or Elohim, then we may 
admit a parallel and agreement to that extent ; but even 
so, there is no further resemblance. The Hebrew cove- 
nant-Jehovah, as revealed to prophets and understood 
by Christians, has no parallel, none like Him, among 
any pagan nation. He is the ever-living God of an 
eternal covenant, Supreme over all, and worshipped by 
all in heaven above and on the earth. He covenants, 
stipulates, enters into an agreement with His people ; 
is jealous of His honor and His throne, and will not 
tolerate another in His place ; He expels all usurpers 
and intruders. While He blesses the loyal and faithful 
nation with the good things of earth, with abundant 
harvests, springing wells, fruitful vineyards and olive- 
trees, He also declares that His anger shall destroy the 



16 GOD IN CREATION. 

rebellious and apostate (Deut. 6). Assuredly we find 
nothing of this in Sabaeism, in naturalism, or in hero 
and ancestor worship after deification ; but we do find 
an approach to it in the blessing of Anu upon those 
saved from the Deluge, as recorded in Chaldean bricks. 

7. But what is more and worse for the evolution 
theory of religion, is that the Hebrew religion was said 
in advance to have its period of termination predeter- 
mined. It was to prepare for another, which should 
supersede it. Abraham, Moses, warning prophets, John 
Baptist himself —all were to be merged in Jesus Christ. 
They only prepared the way for Him. Now, in Baby- 
lon, Egypt, Greece, Mexico, the old world and the new — 
nowhere do we find any parallel to this — prophets and 
priests of a religion who declared that they only pre- 
pared the way for another ! Then in a higher and 
better sense than any Greek thought of his Zeus, the 
Hebrew covenant-God became our Father in Jesus 
Christ. How immensely elevated, too, was and is that 
Fatherhood above pagan ideas of the Deity ; above Ea, 
Bel, or Zeus ; above the thoughts of Hindus, Zulus, 
Samoan or Peruvian ! Our explanation is simple and 
rational. We assume that Heaven inspired the writer 
of the first Accadian Liturgy to form prayers to One 
Supreme Being, prayers for the Seventh-day Sabbath, 
and to appoint special sacrifices for that day. We may 
identify the gazelle and the deer of Chaldean bricks 
with " the roebuck and the hart" of Deuteronomy 
12 : 22. 

Certainly the prophet Isaiah, in 28 : 23-29, teaches 
that God doth instruct man how to cultivate the ground, 
and how to gather the harvest, and how to prepare it 
for food. Nor need we restrict such tuition to Israel- 
ites. Indeed, the early Christian Fathers acknowledged 



GOD IN CREATION. 17 

the pagan oracles to have been inspired.* And instead 
of wondering at such acknowledgment, we may rather 
wonder that all similar evidences of Divine instruction 
are not also acknowledged ; that God inspired ancient 
Accadians as well as Moses. Thus Genesis (6 : 3), " My 
Spirit shall not always strive with man," teaches that 
God's Spirit had theretofore been striving with Him. 
In Genesis 9 : 9-17, the renewed covenant was between 
Elohim and saved mankind. JSTot until those saved 
from the Deluge had corrupted their way upon earth was 
Abraham chosen to be the head of a new nation which 
should preserve the Divine knowledge in the world. 

8. Here belongs one of the memorable episodes of 
history (Gen. 14), which relates the expedition of the 
most famous warrior after Nimrod — viz. : Chedorlaomer, 
or the " Ravager of the West." His name is found 
among the brick inscriptions and in Egypt, regarded as 
historical by such scholars as Ewald and Sir H. Rawlin- 
son. But a peace-loving shepherd, rescuing his relative 
and serving his friends, put an end to his career. Three 
other kings from the southern Euphrates, led by Ched- 
orlaomer, had subdued five kings of Palestine, and 
made them pay tribute. In the thirteenth year after- 
ward they rebelled, and declined to make the payment. 
Whereupon Chedorlaomer and his allies marched against 
them, routed the two rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah, 
seized all their goods and provisions, and captured Lot 
and his goods, and departed. Abraham w r as then 
sojourning at Mamre, was told of the capture of his 
nephew, and at once armed his trusty servants, three 
hundred and eighteen in number, and pursued the 

* Thus Euseb., " Praep. Ev., ,s books v. and vi. ; Clem. Alex., 
"Strom.," v. ; Theodoret, " Therap. Sam.," x. ; Augustine, " De 
Divin. Daemon," op. vi., p. 370, etc. 



18 GOD IF CREATION. 

marauders. He soon came up with them, attacked 
them at midnight, utterly routed them, recovered the 
stolen goods and persons, also Lot with his goods. It 
was a speedy and decisive victory. Chedorlaomer was 
not heard of again. This very opportune and friendly 
achievement elicited gratitude from all concerned ; and 
among those thus benefited was Melchisedec, the priest- 
king of Salem, later on called Jebus and Jerusalem, 
who reappears in sacred history. He seems to officiate 
at the public thanksgiving held by the tribes who were 
delivered from this foreign domination. 

Such are the facts of this much-mystified inci- 
dent. At this thanksgiving of the tribes, Abraham 
gave a tenth of the spoils to Melchisedec, and received 
his priestly blessing. It was an acknowledgment of 
each other's position and of each other's God ; for the 
priest-king and the patriarch-warrior worshipped the 
same Supreme Being. They both alike stand for the 
true and the spiritual amid so much that was false and 
corrupting in that age. It was prior to the birth of 
Isaac, and the completion of the Divine covenant 
through him. Wherefore, then, was the King of 
Salem a worshipper of the Most High God, while the 
neighboring kings in Canaan were corrupt and de- 
generate ? The question suggests the answer : Because 
the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim 
had degenerated from the original and pure worship of 
God in that land. They were evolutioning backward, 
from the true to the false ; while Melchisedec remained 
faithful to the truth which he had received.* Genesis 

* See Oehler's " Old Testament Theology," pp. 59-63 ; Sir J. W. 
Dawson's " Fossil Man," a The Unity of Nature," ch. 12, and 
" Primeval Man, " by the Duke of Argyll, and J. H. A. Ebrard's 
" Apologetics," vol. ii., ed. 1887. 



GOT) IN CREATION. 19 

presents questions for solution which the advocates of 
evolution in religion cannot answer. 

9. A similar illustration we have in the tribe of the 
father-in-law of Moses. It is demonstrable from the 
narrative in Exodus, ch. 18, that he was the chief and 
priest of the Midianites, descended from Abraham, who 
for four hundred years had preserved the true knowl- 
edge and worship of God. The forty years' sojourn 
with this family gave Moses ample opportunity for 
learning the real character of the religion of Zipporah's 
father. Moreover, on bringing his daughter to Moses 
in the wilderness near the mount of God, he took a 
burnt-offering and sacrifices for God, and Aaron, with 
the elders of Israel, joined with him in the worship. 
Moses himself accepted the excellent advice and sugges- 
tions which he offered (verses 12-24). Here was a right 
beginning of the true without the false, yet very soon 
after this we find the false mingled with it, and largely 
prevailing ; for the Midianites became degenerate in 
worship and theology and corrupters of Israel. Like 
the tribe of whom Melchisedec was the priest-king, 
these descendants of Abraham lapsed into wrong ways, 
and evolutioned into a debasing polytheism. 

The instances of Cain and Abel, Seth and Enoch, 
JSToah and Nimrod, Abraham and Melchisedec, Jethro 
and Moses, show, despite any aggregation of other facts 
or fancies^ that the religions feeling in man was a Di- 
vine gift, and that Divine worship was the outcome of 
Divine instruction to mankind. Very early men were 
taught how to honor their Creator, as well as how to 
care for their physical necessities. At first there was 
personal instruction to all, then the tuition of chosen 
patriarchs, then the dispensation of Moses and the 
prophets, then the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The evolu- 



20 OOD IN CREATION. 

tion of religion was from tlie simple to the complex : 
first Divine tuition, leading to public assemblies for 
worship and sacrifice to Jehovah in temple, in taber- 
nacle, at holy places ; the word and vision to patriarchs 
and prophets ; the precepts and laws of Sinai ; detailed 
observances of ritual ; the speaking oracle ; prophetic 
messages, now to honored individuals, now to anointed 
kings, now to distant nations, until we have the full 
manifestation of God's Fatherhood in His Son Jesus 
Christ. But whether in the simple or the complex, all 
nations in early times felt after and found Him whom 
they adored as God. Everywhere is a whisper, an echo, 
or a trumpet note of Elohim Jehovah' — thus saith the 
Lord. Paganized Christianity or baptized paganism 
cannot affect the evidences of revealed religion. It is 
only the God-inspired part of any modes of worship 
that is of God. That men have deified heroes or wor- 
shipped ghosts does not disprove, much less explain, 
why others of larger intelligence have accepted a Reve- 
lation claiming to have been given of God their Creator. 
Yet simple as is this matter, Mr. Spencer infers that, 
because there is and has been much of what may be 
called spurious in religion — much nature-worship, there- 
fore all religion is equally human. He also ignores the 
difference between the Old Covenant with the Hebrews 
and the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. 

10. Nor can I see why what he calls the religious 
idea or sentiment can be more or less true, because of 
its prevalence or its non- universality ! When, indeed, 
was the highest truth or any ethical principle accepted 
by the vast majority of mankind ? Surely not in the 
days of Noah, of Abraham, of Moses, of Elijah, of our 
Lord, nor of reformers in later times. Yet, explain it 
as we may, most men and women possess a tendency 



GOD IN CREATION, 21 

to or aptness for religion. By far the major portion of 
families and of nations have the religious feeling. 
Whether innate, imparted, or acquired, it grows and 
matures in most men with their religious culture. The 
feeling is widely felt, and it unfolds itself like a culti- 
vated flow f er, emitting perfume all around. But be- 
cause there is no perfume here or there only proves that 
there are no fragrant flowers there ; not that flowers 
never existed. So the universality or non-universality of 
religion, or of the religious feeling, does not prove that 
it must he universal in order to be true. It is true ab- 
solutely, whether perceived or suppressed, and is a Di- 
vine gift to man. Any exceptions in prehistoric or later 
times, among antediluvians, Canaanites, among the 
Wedda, the Dor, the Bongo, a Greek, a Roman, or a 
Saxon sceptic, among deaf and dumb, the ignorant or 
the educated, does not and cannot account for the ad- 
mitted fact that almost all mankind are, and have been, 
monotheists or polytheists. Whether a birth endow- 
ment or an acquisition, the vast majority of the human 
race possess and manifest the religious feeling. It was 
this which induced Nimrod and his associates and de- 
pendents to erect the Temple Babil as unlike a grave 
mound as possible. It was this which prompted Neb- 
uchadnezzar to repair, or reconstruct and beautify, that 
temple, consecrating it to the god he worshipped. The 
ruins of that temple still remain, and challenge explora- 
tion ; but where and what was the tomb of Nimrod ? 
Let Mr. Spencer explain the erection of the Temple 
Babil, before the death and deification of Nimrod, upon 
the principle of evolution ! So of the tomb of Shal- 
maneser I., of Tig-lath-pileser I., of Nebuchadnezzar 
himself, whose temple yet remains, but not his tomb. 
Nay, is there anywhere to be found an old ziggurat 



22 GOD IN CREATION. 

tomb like the old ziggurat temples, and equally an- 
cient ? What great hero was there before Nimrod, who 
had been worshipped and a temple built to his honor, 
whom Nimrod and his admirers could copy when they 
erected Babil ? Clearly there is nothing in Revelation 
which makes such large demands on faith and credulity 
as that grave mounds and grave temples were the orig- 
inals which subsequently developed into temples of wor- 
ship to the One Supreme God ! Tenfold easier were it 
to believe that God inspired the writer of the first 
Accadian Liturgy, and taught early Egyptian priests 
the Oneness and Eternity of His Being, and then in- 
spired Moses to write out Divine precepts and laws for 
the covenanted people of Israel, in order to perpetuate 
His worship and make known His will to mankind. 
Such is Revelation. Even the Church may have erred 
in dogmatic limitations. 

11. Again, the Church's belief in God, and deQnition 
of His attributes, and possible misrepresentation of His 
character, does not change the Divine Being. Indeed, 
our worship of Him, or of what we worship as God, may 
vary according to our culture, our climate, our national 
or ethnic requirements, provided only that we cherish 
and truly express the religious feeling. Nor does our 
belief or disbelief in a future life and in the immor- 
tality of the soul change in the least degree the stupen- 
dous fact of endless being for man. This, though al- 
most a truism in theology, seems to be ignored in 
" Ecclesiastical Institutions/' 

Because some men are born deaf and dumb, or some 
are ignorant of the very thought of God, or some cari- 
cature His worship, or some deny His existence, or some 
think that life here and now is the only life for them, 
this is no reason why all men should be deaf and dumb, 



GOD IN CREATION. 23 

or ignorant and unbelieving. Hence section 583 makes 
no more against the reasons for belief in God, supreme 
over all, than it makes against the use of sugar, because 
manv tribes of men have not learned to extract it from 
their sugar-yielding plants ; or against salt, because 
American Indians did not know its use, when lirst 
visited by Europeans. Whether in some sense " re- 
ligious ideas" are not of supernatural origin cannot dis- 
prove revealed religion, nor show that Hebrew prophets 
are of the same class as Fakirs or Druids. The Aztecs 
of the new world, like Semites of the old, worshipped a 
Supreme God. Indeed, there is that in man which leads 
up to God, in the contemplation of His works. Thus 
the Apostle (Rom. 1 : 20, 21) teaches that even the 
everlasting power and deity of the Creator may be 
known from His works ; that knowing Him, men should 
also worship and glorify Him as God. Beyond that we 
may not go — God as our Creator, God our Saviour, God 
our Father. Even the oldest Babylonian records tell 
us of a creative Deity, whose Providence governed crea- 
tion, and who set lesser gods, or laws, in the sky for the 
preservation of the revolving orbs around us.* Now, 
to evoke that guidance and preservation and to insure 
the favor of that Providence is the object of Divine 
worship, the very purpose of the religious feeling. And 
we find it among the earliest historic peoples, even in 
the so-called legendary ages. It is before the beginning 
of our author's " Ecclesiastical Institutions." 

12. Mr. Spencer does not buttress his theory by cit- 
ing, as in section 584, " groups of facts and inferences 
from the aborigines of Victoria !" Were they about 
the aborigines of the valley of the Nile or the Euphrates, 

* See " Eecords of the Past/' vol. ix., pp. 117, 118. 



24 GOD IN CREATION. 

they might be of service ; unfortunately for him, how- 
ever, the ancient inhabitants of those shores testify 
against him, and the medicine men and funeral rites of 
Victoria are far too recent to be helpful. They can 
throw no light on our Lord's words, when He says : All 
that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son 
of Man, and shall come forth ; thy brother shall rise 
again.* It is a direct and personal affirmation which 
no ghost fear or ghost worship could have evolved. The 
dead in their graves were to hear the voice of Jesus ; 
but not in order to quiet them, but to make them come 
forth ! which is in the teeth of all ghost propitiation. 
Compare section 590 : " You come to me for the pur- 
pose of killing me. It is clear that you were a bad fel- 
low when you were a man ; you are still a bad fellow 
under ground I" This is quoted from Bishop Colla- 
way's account of the Zulus, from an interlocution of 
one living with the spirit of his dead brother. But 
how, in the name of Anu, can it explain the early wor- 
ship of that Babylonian Deity? What book of modern 
travels can shed new light on the raising of Lazarus? 
Clearly, we must discriminate between inference and 
history ; between what may have originated we know 
not how nor where and the indisputable teachings of the 
Bible. A God-given Revelation cannot be overturned 
by any rites of the Malagasy, or the last words of Soc- 
rates with his disciples, or the burial scene of a Roman, 
or the self-immolation of a Hindoo, the incantations of 
an African or of an American Indian. While all these 
differ in thought and expression, they arise from a com- 
mon subjective feeling, which is voiced in various ob- 
jective religious rites and symbols. 

* St. John 5 : 28, 29 ; 11 : 23-26. 



GOD IN CREATION. 25 

Hence, as lawyers say, we may enter a demurrer to 
Mr. Spencer's book, confident that even admission of 
his groups of facts can do believers no harm ; for if they 
account for certain ideas and sentiments of various tribes 
of men, they neither explain nor explain away a Reve- 
lation from God to the most ancient peoples, to He- 
brews nor to Christians. Divine worship and eternal 
life remain for us, in spite of Mr. Spencer's " Ecclesi- 
astical Institutions." 

13. I have thus far treated Mr. Spencer's book with 
the respect due to an author who occupies so high a 
place in the republic of letters ; but when in section 
587 he treats of theology proper, and of the Divine 
names of the God of the Hebrews, I am amazed, if not 
indignant, that any man of learning should offer such 
critical rubbish for the consideration of fellow-scholars. 
In his charge against the warlike character of the clergy 
during many ages, Mr. Spencer accuses the prophet 
Micaiah (p. 762) with advising King Ahab to go to 
war with Jehoshaphat against Syria. It is a gross per- 
version of the text in 1 Kings 22 : 15-28, which de- 
clares that Ahab will surely be defeated if he ventures 
on that war. After such misrepresentation, we need 
not be surprised at his misquoting other Scripture. 
Witness this statement: " Under the common title 
Elohim were comprehended distinguished living per- 
sons, ordinary ghosts, superior ghosts, or gods — that 
is to say, with the Hebrews, as with the Egyptians and 
numerous other peoples, a god simply meant a power- 
ful being, existing visibly or invisibly. ... II or El 
among the Hebrews was applied to heroes and also to 
the gods of the gentiles." Therefore, he would have 
his reader infer that there was no superiority between 
Jahveh and Ra, or Anu, Zeus, and others. Now, this 
2 



26 GOD IN CREATION. 

does not come within the range of our demurrer ; we 
deny its truth as a general statement. It was not the 
custom of the Hebrews to speak of their living or dead 
heroes as gods, though spelled with a small g. The 
Bible does not so speak of Abraham, of Moses, of 
Joshua, of the Judges that followed him, or of David 
and any subsequent King of Israel, or of Judah. Of 
course, when a Hebrew speaks of the deities of other 
nations, he uses the one name by which such deities 
were to be known, or even compared or contrasted with 
the God of Israel. Thus in Ex. 15 : 11 Moses asks, 
Who is like unto Thee, Lord, among the gods? 
Certainly He had triumphed over the gods of Egypt. 
Indeed, he had in the Decalogue expressly forbidden 
Israel to worship any other god.* What other word or 
name could be used in such prohibition ? not idol, not 
creator, not bestower of the good things of earth. Then 
to the praise of Jacob we read, There was no strange god 
with him (Deut. 32 : 12). Again we read that the 
Shechemites entered into the hold or fortress of the 
house of the god Berith (Judges 9 : 46). The Psalmist 
would not stretch out his hands to any strange god 
(44 : 20), Nay, he would extol Him by His name Jah 
(68 : 4), and rejoice before Him. 

Thus we might proceed with illustrations of Hebrew 
usage. El was the common name for Deity. But Jere- 
miah is authority for saying that the gods that have 
not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from 
the earth and from under these heavens (10 : 11). 
The prophet Daniel contains instances of the Hebrew 
and of the Babylonian use of the name for Deity. And 
Elohim is used by Satan when tempting Eve (Gen. 

* Ex. 20 : 3 ; 34 : 14. 



GOD IN CREATION. 27 

3 : 5). But generally it is the plural of excellence and 
majesty ; Eloliim is the Creative God ; to be worshipped, 
to be obeyed, to be loved, to be honored and revered. 
He defends, preserves, leads forth, fights for, encamps 
around, and does all those anthropomorphic acts which 
a paternal God may be supposed to do for a devout and 
dependent people. Precisely that which a child of God 
wants to believe of God, Mr. Spencer regards as deroga- 
tory to Him ! Assuredly no Hebrew nor Christian ever 
thinks of the Divine Being whom he reverences as he 
thinks and speaks of pagan divinities, or as he thinks 
and speaks of living or dead heroes, not excepting the 
royalists' use of the phrase " Our Lord, the King ;" or 
the Churchman's, " Rt. Eev. Father in God;" or the 
Romanist's climax, " Our Lord God, the Pope !" 

It is unwarranted assumption for any one to make that 
a believer in inspiration ever thinks that Elohim is 
used of the god Baal in the same sense as it is applied 
to Jehovah ; or that the god of Ekron and the god Nis- 
roch, the god Chemosh and the god Milcom, the god 
Nebo and the god Bel, the god Moloch and the god 
Dagon, were, in fact, gods at all.* Nay, was it not the 
terrible irony of the prophet, in his withering contrast 
of Baal's impotency with the all-powerful Jehovah, that 
goaded the idolaters to cut their flesh in agony and 
chagrin, as well as liturgic frenzy, because that Baal 
failed to manifest himself just when such manifestation 
was most necessary ? Elijah's mockery of those deluded 
suppliants is an everlasting answer to Mr. Spencer's as- 
sumption : " Cry aloud ; for he is a god ; either he is 
talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey ; per- 
adventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened !" This 

* See Deuteronomy, chaps. 4, 5 ; also 10 : 17. 



28 GOB IN CREATION. 

ever proved to Israel, as it does to Christendom, that 
God alone was God. See the beautiful narrative of the 
little maid and Naaman in 2 Kings 5. Pagan deities 
were in no sense the Elohim whom the Hebrews adored. 
He only was the acknowledged Creator, the God of 
Israel, God of patriarchs and prophets ; by whose cove- 
nant name Jehovah they were blessed ; to whom they 
solemnly promised their allegiance ; in whose favor they 
lived and died. To bow to any other god in worship, 
to acknowledge his power or sovereignty, to invoke his 
aid for any purpose whatsoever, this was to incur Je- 
hovah's displeasure and the chastisement of an adverse 
Providence. It was ecclesiastical rebellion and ecclesi- 
astical apostasy ; it reduced the Hebrews under the 
domination of other nations, now of Philistines and 
Syrians, now of Egyptians and Assyrians, now of Baby- 
lonians and Eomans. The reason and memory of man- 
kind must be eliminated before Elohim- Jehovah can 
be evolved from any pagan deities. He is God of gods, 
Lord of lords, a great God, mighty and terrible (Deut. 
10 : 17). He is exclusive of all gods of the heathen, and 
even their names were not to be mentioned ; Israelites 
must not swear by them, nor serve them, nor bow them- 
selves unto them (Josh. 23 : 7). Indeed, all other gods 
and worship must be forsaken and put away, and Jeho- 
vah alone served and obeyed (Josh. 24 : 14-27). A 
stone of witness was set up in Shechem by the sanc- 
tuary of Jehovah, that Israel had chosen Him to the 
exclusion of all divinities of other nations. The whole 
passage is conclusive that all other deities and all other 
worship were forbidden and renounced. It is, however, 
clear that Israel often and again sank into idolatry. 
Hence the warnings and denunciations of the prophets. 
Hence the exhortations and the irony, even ridicule, 



GOD IN CREATION. 29 

of Isaiah in 44 : 8-21 ; 48 : 5-11. Jeroboam and Ahab, 
Ahaz and Manasseh, made themselves forever famous 
in Hebrew history as idolatrous kings who aposta- 
tized from the worship of Jehovah, and suffered for it. 
14. Again, Deuteronomy (32 : 17) corrects Mr. Spencer 
when he says " the Israelites sacrificed unto devils," 
overlooking the marginal reading "not God;" and 
again in Psalms 106 : 37 ; both passages mean destroyers, 
whom apostatizing Hebrews sought to propitiate ; for 
which the writer rebukes them, adding, " For they were 
new gods, coming newly up, whom their fathers knew 
not." As properly may we call Solomon a representa- 
tive Jahvist in his concubinage as in his tolerance, if 
not adoration, of the idols worshipped by his many 
wives ; or that Moses instituted circumcision, polyg- 
amy, or dancing as religious rites, much less that he ap- 
pointed devil-worship. I shall therefore insert a nega- 
tive in the following sentence from our author : 
" Jahveh was [not] originally one among many — the 
god who became supreme." He was ever the Almighty 
God of the Patriarchs, the Lord of Hosts, the God of 
Israel, the covenant-keeping God, who would not give 
His glory to another. Only as representing the Divine 
authority were the administrators of justice ever called 
gods in Israel (Ps. 82 ; 97 : 7 ; Ex. 21 : 6 ; 22 : 8, 28). 
Hence the injunction "not to revile the gods— i.e., 
judges," as the margin correctly reads, "nor to curse 
their rulers." So the witch of Endor saw the prophet 
who had judged Israel for twenty years, reappearing to 
her terrified vision in the form of a judge ; which leads 
Mr. Spencer to suggest that the Hebrews habitually 
propitiated and invoked ghosts, because their rejected 
King Saul sought to hold converse with the deceased 
Samuel ! Whereas the reverse was the truth : even Saul 



30 GOD IN CREATION. 

had engaged in the expulsion and cutting off of necro- 
mancers out of the land.* 

Mr. Spencer's reference to the false Balaam is unfor- 
tunate for his theory ; for all soothsaying was explicitly 
forbidden (Deut. 18 : 10, 11). When summoned by 
Balak to curse Israel, Balaam resorts to augury, whence 
he is called " bakkosem," the soothsayer ; a word never 
used in a good sense in the Bible, but as denoting one 
guilty of deadly sin, as marking a false prophet ; so in 
1 Sam. 15 : 23 ; 2 Kings 17 : 17 ; Ezek. 13 : 9, 23 ; 
Jeremiah 14 : 14-16, who declares^ " By sword and fam- 
ine shall those prophets be consumed. " Indeed, there 
is not a passage in the Old Testament which justifies 
the claim, or the inference, that the Hebrew religion 
ever taught or sanctioned any form of augury, sooth- 
saying, or necromancy. And every reader of the New 
Testament knows how severely such practices were re- 
buked by the apostles. Thus in Acts 8 : 18-24 ; 1 Tim. 
1 : 20 ; 2 Tim! 4 : 14 ; 2 Peter 2 : 15, 16 ; Jude 11. 
Note also the commendation of those who abandoned 
the use of curious arts, and burned their books, which 
were of the market value of fifty thousand pieces of silver I 
(Acts 19 : 19.) In verse 9 we are told it was the vaga- 
bond Jews who were the offenders ; and upon them 
alone can Mr. Spencer base his theory. 

Thus section 587 is largely a caricature and misrepre- 
sentation of what the Hebrews believed and practised 
before their Exile. Surely their adoption of any cus- 
toms and observances similar to those of Egyptians, 
Babylonians, or Palestinians cannot make for the theory 
of evolution nor against the inspiration and originality 
of Moses ; who, while he may have copied somewhat 

* See 1 Sam. 28 : 9. 13 : Deut. 18 : 9-14. 



GOB IN CREATION. 31 

from what he read and saw about him, confessedly pos- 
sessed large originating powers, and God instructed him 
to legislate for the most stubborn slaves that ever served 
a master ; slaves who, when freed, continued to hunger 
for the fleshpots of Egypt, and made for themselves 
gods like unto the calves they had seen their taskmas- 
ters worship. No, Moses was in no sense responsible 
for the idolatrous tendency of any Israelite ; nor did 
Moses enact many of their quasi-religious practices. 

15. Moreover, Mr. Spencer errs in leaping about from 
continent to continent, from the old world to the new 
world, that he may find some parallels to Hebrew cus- 
toms, carefully avoiding any attempt to parallel the 
Passover ; as though anything in the gods or the 
worship of Mexicans, Central Americans, or Peruvians 
-—separated by the broad Atlantic and by thousands of 
years — could account for similar gods and usages in 
Palestine ! So of dancing, because Miriam, because 
some calf-worshippers, because David, at the return of 
the Ark of God, and rejoicing maidens of Israel danced 
for gladness, now at deliverance from Pharaoh, now at 
hope revived, now at a returning hero ; therefore danc- 
ing was a religious rite enjoined by Moses, who had not 
then received the Law of Sinai (Ex. 15 : 20 ; 32 : 6). 
He sees a parallel in the story of the birth of Moses 
with the Assyrian story of Sarginaand the water-carrier 
(p. 696). But dare Mr. Spencer affirm that the two are 
not from the same original, and that the original is not 
recorded in our Exodus ? Certainly Mr. George Smith, 
who translated the Chaldean legend for us about fifteen 
years ago, thought it was derived from the Hebrew ac- 
count. So others. Many other Chaldean accounts are 
also preserved, corrected, if not first recorded in our 
Bibles. The Egyptians have a parallel of the story of 



32 OOD IN CREATION. 

Joseph in the house of Potiphar, in the tale of the " Two 
Brothers/' doubtless of a later date ; but there is one, 
and that a scientific point, which can find no parallel in 
Babylonia — viz., while the Chaldean accounts of the 
creation make the creation of the moon before that of 
the sun, our Genesis correctly gives the scientific order, 
making the sun, the principal and central orb, first 
created. Yet this evidence of the superiority and God- 
derived account of our Genesis is passed by without a 
single remark ! Would Mr. Spencer have been silent if 
those records had read the other way? Eeading as 
they do, they really authenticate Moses and his legisla- 
tion. It is from such and similar considerations that 
we are compelled to accept the writings and dispensa- 
tion of Moses as from God, which prepared for O^e who 
has come. Neither the one nor the other could have 
been evolved from what he saw about him, or read in 
any Records of the Past, yet the advent of Jesus was 
heralded and His way prepared by a long line of fa- 
mous prophets. 

16. But, finally, when the ancient civilizations had 
passed away, when the classic world was about to be 
plunged in the darkness and confusion of the middle 
ages, a hero appeared whose career is universally ad- 
mitted, but whose tomb is nowhere to be found. Greatly 
differing from Nimrod and from Abraham, both in char- 
acter and endeavor, Attila the Hun cannot be explained 
by Mr. Spencer's theory. He was the leader of Scythic 
and Tartar hordes who marched on from victory to vic- 
tory ; the one man in a thousand years from whom 
should be evolved hero-deification and worship, accord- 
ing to our author's hypothesis. Yet what follows in- 
stead ? Attila dies suddenly in his career of conquest ; 
the course of a river is turned by the labors of his army, 



GOD IN CREATION. 33 

and in the silence of midnight the body of the hero, 
enclosed in a threefold coffin, is buried deep in that 
river's bed ! Not a stone is raised to his memory, not 
a prayer is offered, and he, among the greatest of his 
race, has never been enrolled in the list of Hungarian 
divinities ; has never been worshipped by the myriads 
whom he led in triumph to the gates of Rome, and who 
pillaged the eternal city. Scourge of God he may 
have been, but his death gave no rise to any religious 
cult. The great Khans who succeeded him were buried 
in the Altai Mountains ; but neither he nor they were 
adored as gods or propitiated as ghosts.* 

The travels of Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, 
describe some very significant Tartar customs. When 
a person who is held in esteem dies, astrologers are em- 
ployed to determine the auspicious day for his burial, 
which may be delayed by them for days and even months. 
Meantime the body is embalmed with spices and covered 
with an embroidered cloth. E^ery day before burial a 
table is set with meat and wine for the deceased, and 
opportunity is given him to partake of the refreshment. 
Sometimes the inauspicious signs require that a wall of 
the house shall be broken through for the passage of the 
corpse, in order to prevent wrong being done to the 
dead. Then, on the way to interment, bread, flesh, and 
delicate food are again placed before the body for the 
refreshment of the spirit, which is supposed to accom- 
pany it at the burial. At the grave the friends dili- 
gently paint upon leaves of smooth bark images of men 
and women, of horses and camels, of money and cloth- 
ing, amid much music loudly sounding. Then all those 
paintings are burned together with the corpse ; for they 

* See Gibhoi}, *' pecline and Fajl qf the Rowan Empire." 



34 GOD IN CREATION. 

say that dead men shall have as many men and women 
servants, horses and camels, money and clothes, in an- 
other life as pictures of them were burned at their fu- 
neral, and they shall live evermore in honor, riches, and 
felicity. 

If a young Tartar die unmarried they look up a family 
that has lost an unmarried daughter ; then upon agree- 
ment the parents of the deceased celebrate their nup- 
tials, and write the marriage contract. They also paint 
on the paper of bark likenesses of men and women, 
horses, clothes and money, as just described. Then, 
burning the pictures, they say that all these things are 
carried to their children in the other world, who are 
thereby joined in the same affinity of marriage as if it 
had been celebrated while the young couple were still 
alive in the body. 

When the great Khan Mangu was taken for burial to 
Mount Altai, the soldiers who guarded and attended 
their chief are reported to have slain more than ten 
thousand men who should wait upon the departed Khan 
in another life ! * Thus we find Tartars, Scythians, 
Persians, Hindus, Egyptians, and Britons expressing, 
by very striking usages, their belief in a future life ; 
and indicating clearly enough that they had no fears of 
the dead, but rather communed and feasted with them. 
Fire-worshippers, idol-worshippers, and iconoclasts be- 
lieved in immortality of some sort, in life without the 
body, in conscious existence, or in Nirvana. Some old 
Britons, some Hindus, some Tartars, burned their dead, 
and then buried their bones in a cave of the mountains, 
enclosed in a strong chest to prevent disturbance by man 

* Standard works ad loc. ; Professor Mori ey's " Marco Polo," 
also bis " Sir J. Maundeville." 



GOD IN CREATION. 35 

or beast ; but even those Hindus who adored their an- 
cestors did not fear them, and adored them only for the 
good they had done or might do. Their religion is to-day 
almost the same as when Alexander conversed, through 
interpreters, with Indian gymnosophists. Islamism 
could not change it, nor substitute its theology for the 
first Beyond, nor its doctrine of immortality for the 
second Beyond. The third Beyond is the pursuit of all 
good men, the Eternal Rule of Right and of Righteous- 
ness. It was before Mahomet, before Gautama, before 
Moses. The rule of right is Divine. 

Cruel and perverse as ancient Egyptians were, they 
regarded justice and virtue as of the highest value. 
They prayed to their God for a long life, 110 years. 
They honored their dead, gave bread to the hungry, 
water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, and showed 
pity to the unfortunate. These were among the Com- 
mandments of obligation, many of which are scarcely 
inferior to our Christian precepts, and indicate Divine 
instruction.* 

* See Brugsch-Bey's " Egypt Under the Pharaohs," p. 24. 



II. 

GOD IN CREATION AND IN WORSHIP. 

Canst thou by searching find out God? (Job 11 : 7.) Then the 
Lord answered Job, and said, Where wast thou when I laid the 
foundations of the earth ? When I made the cloud the garment 
for the sea, . . . and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, and here shall 
thy proud waves be stayed ? Canst thou bind the sweet influences 
of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion ? Canst thou guide Arc- 
turus with his sons ? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? 
Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth ? I have heard 
of thee by the hearing of the ear ; but now mine eye seeth Thee. 
(Job 38 : 4, 9, 11, 31-35 ; 42 : 5.) With God is terrible majesty : 
We cannot find out the Almighty. He is excellent in power, and 
in judgment, and in justice. Men do therefore fear Him, (37 : 
22-24.) Compare Romans 11 : 33, 36. 

Such were the questions put to Job four thousand 
years ago, and such were Jus answers, and the affirma- 
tions of Elihu. Yet men puzzle themselves to-day in 
trying to find a different solution and a different state- 
ment and affirmation. 

1. Science finds it very difficult to give a true answer 
to many interrogatories. It simply cannot explain na- 
ture. Nor is it possible for the material to explain the 
material. Not even a diamond can explain its brill- 
iancy. The inorganic world cannot tell how nor 
whence it came to occupy space. Being, even the high- 
est order, cannot tell what life is. It can only say, mat- 
ter is matter, and entity is entity. When scientists 



GOB IN CREATION. 37 

come to formulate an exposition of the origin of the 
world and of the universe, of the life of men and of ani- 
irials, they are bound and restricted by their own limita- 
tions. No one can unfold the mysteries pertaining to 
himself. Yet he exclaims, " A carpenter-like theory !" 
if you suggest a Divine plan wrought out by an Al- 
mighty Architect. Next to explaining Godhead with- 
out Fatherhood is the difficulty a man has in explain- 
ing himself. True, he can give the anatomy of his body 
and classify his mental faculties, but the bond or centre 
of connection between body and mind, and what the 
mind is apart from its material operations, has not yet 
been explained by man. And the reason, as Bishop 
Butler states it, is our ignorance, or, in more polite 
modern phrase, the limitations of our being. So far 
but no farther may we go in accounting for ourselves. 
No wonder, then, that those who ignore such limita- 
tions differ among themselves in their expositions. 
Yet their "little systems have their day, and pass 
away. ' ' 

Who has ever seen a house, a work of art, a suit of 
clothes, or sate down to a good dinner, that some one 
had not built, devised the artistic product, made the 
garments, prepared the food ? Somebody furnished the 
materials and applied the skill. Matter and skill, sub- 
stance and genius, were required. Not a piece of bread 
or a cup of coffee can be had without multiform de- 
mands upon human contrivance. Yet there are men of 
learning and attainments who try to evolve the earth 
whereon we live, the life and light-imparting sun, the 
stars which gem the firmament, and all the heavens to 
the utmost reach of the universe, out of mere matter, 
in solids or in vapors ; and then conjure up for it the 
possession of force, somehow connected with an Infinite 



38 GOD IN CREATION. 

and Eternal Energy, and so evolve world after world, 
filling space with suns, surrounding suns with satellites, 
and peopling them with living intelligences ! 

2. Nevertheless, since the historic period not a single 
new grain for food has been developed, nor a new ani- 
mal for meat, nor a new sense for man. But with his 
advent there was a culmination and a stoppage of de- 
velopment. " The force of nature could no farther go." 
Gourmands and epicures have not got beyond beef and 
mutton, pork and poultry, fish and eggs ! Though 
these are enough for common folks, why should prince 
and potentate have no larger variety now than they had 
four thousand years ago ? The progress of ages still 
offers the bill of fare supplied to our ancestors in the 
dim twilight of our race to the men and women of to- 
day. Herein nature has not progressed. She still pro- 
duces milk and kine, oil and honey, flocks and game, 
the produce of the ground and the treasures of the 
waters, as she did for Noah and Abraham, ISTimrod 
and Job, Egyptian and Assyrian, Hindus and Greek. 
Men may have improved the quality, but they have not 
created a new species of food. 

This would seem to be another reason for accepting 
the conclusions of Job. When the Divine hand rested 
and the Divine fiat ceased to create, then the work of 
creation ceased. Thus we are beset with difficulties 
when we try to eliminate a Creator, an overruling Provi- 
dence and Eevelation from the world. We grope in the 
dark. There must be, there must have been, a Divine 
Origin, a Directive Force, a Supreme Power, that evoked 
creation according to design ; whom, for short, we call 
God, the Good Being, who is the Author of all we see, 
and know, and hope for. Hj3 gave laws to the material 
and the spiritual of the universe, to all its matter, its 



GOD IN CREATION 39 

force, its life ; without Him nothing is, or was made, 
as St. John teaches (1 : 3, 4). 

3. Accepting this Original, we may then accept the 
evolution of the universe as proceeding from the force 
of His fiat, from the laws which He appointed, from 
the energy which He applied, the life which He impart- 
ed, and the immortality which He bestowed. But what 
causative principle is there in matter which was not 
imparted or infused from without itself ? Was the 
original form hot or cold, in vapor or in solid ? What, 
or who changed its form, and aroused it from its iner- 
tia ? It cannot of itself begin a motion or stop itself 
when in motion ; so its laws teach us. If matter was orig- 
inally at an incandescent measure of heat, or incalculably 
cold, how came the first life in that intense heat, or the 
caloric and the life in that intense cold ? For life was 
impossible in those conditions. Too intense heat or 
cold is certain and absolute death. Moreover, the ani- 
mal life of our world was produced at a later period. 
Since nature is inexorable, since nothing comes from 
nothing, and like from like, how came life, the organic 
world, from dead matter, the inorganic world ? Reason 
demands a Designer to evolve a plan ; a Cause to effect 
causation. Any other theory is but as a gossamer thread 
which may be blown away by the first touch of wind, or 
of logic. Creation is cause and consequence, whose 
factors are matter, force, intelligence. Job and Elihu, 
Moses and David, St. John and St. Paul, tell us that 
God is the Source and Author of both. " In the be- 
ginning God created the heavens and the earth. " Mat- 
ter was therefore created by Him ; but how and whence 
He created matter is not said ; only that God made and 
upholdeth all things and that He made man in His own 
image and likeness ; which we may interpret as charac- 



40 GOD IN CREATION. 

ter, personality, and immortality ; perfect as a responsi- 
ble being, but without experience. 

4. Science is now positive in telling us that matter as 
matter has no inherent vitalizing quality, no latent en- 
ergy which can transform it into life. It can neither 
interpret nor create ; has no knowing faculties, no con- 
science. The changes of its phenomena are not self- 
caused. Conscience and the cognitive faculty are not 
the forces of nature, nor explained by them. They are 
different from that which revolves the worlds on their 
axes and in their orbits. Yet a famous writer seems to 
make them identical, as though conscience, cognition, 
and gravitation were the same force differently man- 
ifested ! As though the knowing faculty, the moral 
sense, and causative force were alike ! Wherefore I say, 
the Power manifested throughout the universe and 
operating on and in material things is not the same as 
that which acts within us in consciousness. They are 
two, and they are different in kind. It surely is not 
the same force which causes the fall of an apple which 
thinks a thought, decides a question in ethics or in 
metaphysics, generates steam, and kindles human affec- 
tions. From matter may come matter, mind from 
mind, life and soul from life and soul ; they are not 
identical, but eternally different. The origin of each 
must be accounted for. The mineral does not evolve 
entity, nor mere life evolve mind, soul, spirit. Proto- 
plasm is not intelligence, is not conscience, is not that 
which possesses immortality. But we demand to know 
whence came protoplasm ? Even granting the eternity 
of matter, or of a dead globe, the mystery of life, of 
protoplasm, must still be accounted for ; it did not 
spring from the dead earth— protoplasm for the vege- 
table, protoplasm for the brute creation, protoplasm for 



GOB IN CREATION. 41 

highly organized manhood — like Minerva from the 
brain of Jupiter. Yet, like the ancients, we must have 
a Jupiter, a God of power and wisdom to explain pro- 
toplasm. No ghost theory can explain the origin of 
life. No theory about the manes or spirits of the de- 
parted can explain protoplasm and its origin. Proto- 
plastic powers demand a higher power, intelligence, de- 
sign, contrivance, and a Being who could produce it. 
Granting an Infinite and Eternal Energy is not enough. 
It must be a Living Energy, or it could not produce 
life, not even protoplastic life. The dead cannot orig- 
inate the living. Hence we affirm the prior existence 
of a Being who could form protoplasm. There was a 
Life, after the creation of the mineral w T orld, who alone 
could create or evolve the living world. That Life we 
may call Infinite and Eternal ; existing before all other 
life. This seems to be proving that 2x2 = 4. But Mr. 
Spencer makes it necessary to do so, in order to forefend 
the charge of dogmatism. Hence, to repeat, granting a 
world and its sun, with his light and heat, gravitation 
and diurnal and annual revolutions, these require the 
further grant of life and protoplasm, before the produc- 
tion of vegetable or animal existence, and more yet be- 
fore we come to man.. Law, or the properties of mat- 
ter, cannot germinate a rose or a pet animal, much less 
a man to smell the rose or pet the animal. Hence God 
was the first Life, and gave life to all existences, and the 
power of reproduction. 

5. An Almighty Creator, arranging and adorning the 
cosmos, imparting life, imparting soul or the immortal 
faculty to man, saves us from all absurdities, and ade- 
quately explains all mysteries. My reason refuses to be- 
lieve that that power which holds the spheres above and 
around us in their orbits is the same power as that 



42 GOD IN CREATION. 

which draws and binds together two loving hearts ; 
which causes a brick to fall and a child to kiss his 
mother ! Admit a similar feeling in the lower animals, 
it surely is not like capillary attraction, nor like that 
which attracts the distant planets. We must follow the 
rule and phenomena of nature, like from like, matter 
from matter through power and purpose, spirit and soul 
from spirit and soul. Hence the conclusion that all 
nature is from G-od, its lower and higher forms of life ; 
that life must be accounted for as well as matter ; and 
that God alone explains both matter and life. 

" As to the theory of l mental evolution' which results 
in bringing the mind of man into the same strict sub- 
jection to the energy of outside nature, under the law 
of the conservation and correlation of energy, that char- 
acterize all the phenomena with which modern physical 
science is accustomed to deal, Professor Ladd rejects 
this as 'inadequate and misleading.' He also says 
emphatically, ' the development of mind can only be 
regarded as the progressive manifestation in conscious- 
ness of the life of a real being which, although taking 
its start and direction from the action of the physical 
elements of the body, proceeds to unfold powers that 
are sui generis, according to laws of its own.' Still 
further, that ' the assumption that the mind is a real 
being, which can be acted upon by the brain, and which 
can act on the body through the brain, is the only one 
compatible with all the facts of experience. There is 
nothing which we know about the nature of material 
beings and the laws of their relation to each other, or 
about the nature of spiritual beings and their possible 
relation to material beings, or about the nature of causal 
efficiency, whether in the form of so-called physical 
energy or in that of activity in consciousness, which for- 



QOD IN CREATION. 43 

bids the aforesaid assumption. On the contrary, every- 
thing which we actually know, as distinguished from 
what we conjecture to be true, or would like to have 
true for the satisfaction of certain of our quasi-scientific 
or ethical impulses, favors this assumption. And no other 
assumption, substantially different from this, is compati- 
ble with the facts of experience/ " — The Times'' Revieiv. 

But science has gone silly in assumptions and at- 
tempts at the solution of mysteries. Having theoreti- 
cally eliminated God from the universe, His hand and 
skill from matter and life, it next proceeded to account 
for the ever-prevalent tendency in mankind to worship 
Him ; to worship what stood for them as God. The 
explanation of this borders on the grotesque. It is 
gravely proposed to explain the religious feeling and 
worship of men for the Supreme Being by the regard 
which they are wont to cherish for departed heroes and 
benefactors. Hence it is urged that ghosts were before 
God, and propitiation of them before worship of Him, 
and, indeed, led to it, or developed into it. A more un- 
historic assumption has scarcely ever been made ; but 
Mr. Spencer makes it. The intelligence of our age is 
expected to accept it. 

6. The idea of a ghost, we are told, arose from a long 
contemplation by the living of the departed, and the 
desire to communicate with them. Hence arose belief 
in the manes of the dead, and attempts to appease and 
honor them. Dissolution of the body did not prevent 
surviving friends from calling to mind the original, as 
he appeared in life ; hence the notion of each human 
being having a double ; sleep, a swoon, epileptic fits, 
strengthened such belief ; that double was the after 
ghost, which must be propitiated ! And hence were 
developed God, and His worship, and ecclesiastical in- 



44 QOD IN CREATION. 

stitutions ! Alas for the basis of such a theory ! The 
first ghost of authentic history was the voice of the blood 
of the slain Abel crying out against the fratricide 
Cain ! He may well have thought that he heard his 
brother's voice, and saw him reappear in his agony. 
But he had known of God before he committed that 
awful crime, and he acknowledged God when he received 
the accursed mark ; his memory and his conscience 
made him fear and fly. Mr. Spencer must explain this, 
not by elimination of the text and tragedy, but by ex- 
position of them. Both Cain and Abel had sacrificed 
to Jehovah, and Cain felt disappointment at the non- 
acceptance of his gifts, and had envy toward Abel, whose 
sacrifice was approved ; wherefore he slew him. Criti- 
cism rejects some words about " the conversation in the 
field," but no one rejects the account as not credible 
and historic. And it upsets Mr. Spencer's theory alto- 
gether. Here we have God, and the worship or sacri- 
fice to Jahveh, before any death of hero, parent, or 
benefactor, and before any ghost ! The narrative is 
conclusive of belief in the existence of Deity and of 
Divine worship in the earliest historic period. That 
belief and worship cannot be explained away. No mat- 
ter for this argument, whether one believes in the in- 
spiration of Genesis or not ; the record is that of facts 
touching belief and conduct of Cain and Abel. Either 
this narrative must be expunged, or the facts of that 
early belief and worship must be accepted. There is 
but one other resort, and that is for Mr. Spencer to pro- 
duce earlier records of earlier instances from which sac- 
rifice and belief in God were developed. This is what 
cannot be done. I say so without dogmatism, for 1 ad- 
mit that this very early belief in God does not prove 
His existence, nor creative power, though it does prove 



GOD IN CREATION. 45 

Cain's belief in His Providence and punishment of sin. 
The record does not prove inspiration, yet the record is 
indisputable. There are no evidences that Egyptians, 
Chaldeans, or Hindus have any reliable accounts of an 
earlier date, nor early accounts of non-belief in God and 
of no worship and sacrifice being offered the Supreme 
God. I admit that Mr. Spencer can probably prove his 
theory from Greek and Roman literature,* but not from 
the more ancient literatures of Hebrews and other 
Semitics, nor from Egypt and India, nor from ancient 
Gauls and Britons. Nor can it explain the conduct of 
Nimrod and of Abraham. These all believed in a Su- 
preme Being, whom they worshipped, and erected tem- 
ples and altars to His honor. Some of them, like some 
moderns, may have erred in their ideas of Him, in the 
attributes and manifestations ascribed to Him ; while 
all believed in and adored Him. He is not limited by 
our definitions of Him, any more than a man is rich or 
poor in fact by being so rated by a friend or an enemy. 
We did not need a philosopher to tell us that we may 
err in ascribing too anthropomorphic a character to 
God ; too many of our own ideas, emotions, and voli- 
tions as attributes and passions of Jehovah ; thus mak- 
ing Him more or less spiritual, intellectual, or human, 
according to our scale of intelligence, according as we 
descend in measure of attainment to the condition of a 
Hottentot, rag-picker, or savage, or rise to the height 

* Athenagoras in his " Plea" is careful to point out that the 
names, as well as the existence of the gods of the Empire, are of 
recent date. All inclined to accept the Spencerian Evolution of 
Ecclesiastical Institutions should study chapters 17-21 of the 
" Plea of St. Athenagoras,'' now above seventeen hundred years 
old. He is explicit in showing that the gods of the State were 
much too young for him. 



46 GOD IN CREATION. 

of Psalmist or prophet, like Abraham or Moses, David 
or Homer, Plato or Paul, Isaiah or Milton. A Pascal 
will form a loftier conception of Deity than a peasant, 
and a Leibnitz different from a laborer. 

7. As we revise this paper, we read Mr. Burroughs in 
Po}nilar Science Monthly, thus : " Was it Talleyrand 
who replied to some enthusiast who proposed to start a 
new religion that he advised him to begin by getting 
himself crucified, and to rise again on the third day? 
As a new cult founded upon reason alone, or as a nat- 
ural religion alone, Christianity could not have coped 
with the supernatural religions that then possessed the 
world. Men's minds were not prepared for it, and it is 
probably equally true that the mass of mankind are 
not yet prepared for a religion based upon natural 
knowledge alone." Certainly not, and never will be. 
Only one religion has had the preparation of prophecy. 
Two thousand years were illumined with the prophetic 
utterances in preparation for our Christian religion. 
Even were it possible those deliverances could have been 
made without the inspiration of God, the fact is never- 
theless demonstrable that from the Divine covenant 
with Abraham to its culmination with the crucifixion 
of Jesus Christ, two millenniums were occupied in pre- 
paring for it. It is an unexampled fact of human his- 
tory and experience. The religions of the world offer 
no parallel to this. Some reformers in morals and re- 
ligion had had attendants and disciples, but Jesus alone 
had the long line of prophetic preparation for His com- 
ing. Possibly when Talleyrand's scornful jest shall be 
realized, and a new teacher shall get himself crucified, 
and then rise again to life on the third day, Christian- 
ity may have a real rival, but probably not till then. It 
was foretold that One should arise out of Judea who 



GOD IN CREATION. 47 

should possess the earth. He Himself has warned His 
followers of many anti-Christs. 

8. But our history is amazed when learned men at- 
tempt to explain the origin of such a religion by a theory 
about heroes and ghosts. The notion is inadequate to 
explain the religious cult of Egypt and Babylonia, much 
less that of Israel. There we find the record of a Sab- 
bath, of Divine worship, of a cosmogony and the creation 
of man by a Great God. These are facts of history 
which no philosophic guess can overturn or eliminate. 
Written on Egyptian stone and parchment, inscribed 
on Assyrian bricks, voiced by the Hebrew Lawgiver, 
those ancient records cannot be set aside. They de- 
mand explanation ; eliminated they cannot be. They 
tell us of the very early belief of men in One Eternal 
and Omnipotent God, the Creator of all things, the 
Bestower of life. Before the life of any hero was writ- 
ten they described the worship of God. Put the begin- 
nings of history as far back as you please, you will there 
find the affirmation of a Creative God, before the biog- 
raphy of any man. To educe God from a ghost as the 
order of development in Egypt or in Babylonia, is to 
pervert and falsify the records of those countries. Says 
Kenrick, " There is nothing in history, or in the monu- 
ments, which indicates that the gods of Egypt were 
really deified men. We find every where, in the civilized 
ancient world, a belief in one supreme power, coexist- 
ing with polytheism, either as the result of a primeval 
revelation of this doctrine, or of that conviction of a 
unity of purpose and administration which forces itself 
upon the mind, from its own consciousness of a moral 
and intellectual unity, and from the observation of the 
external world.' ' * 

* " Egypt," vol. i., pp. 295, 306. 



48 GOD IN CREATION. 

Embalming by the Egyptians was coeval with their 
nationality. Did they fear the ghosts of their dead 
when they placed them in their best rooms ; at their 
feasts and family gatherings ; in processions upon occa- 
sions of great rejoicing? A mirthful people, they had 
no dread of an embalmed friend or relative, though 
they might grieve at the death of the wicked. Their 
mummies emphasized for them the doctrine of immor- 
tality, and were the outcome of their belief in it. The 
bodies were preserved for future occupancy in the resur- 
rection life. It was a practice arising from their belief 
in another life. God was prior to any worship of Him ; 
and immortality came from Him, not from the practice 
of embalming. 

9. Egyptians originally knew but One Self-Existent 
Being, who was the Generator of all things. The sun 
in his meridian glory became His best representative, 
whom they called Ea ; in the nocturnal hidings of his 
splendor, Atoum ; as the giver and sustainer of life, 
Kepher. But in the earliest dawn of their history they 
worshipped One Eternal and Good God who was the 
Bestower of all the blessings they enjoyed. The gross 
superstition of later times was developed from their re- 
ligiousness, not their piety from their polytheism. 
Originally their priests knew the doctrine of the Unity 
and Oneness of Deity, latterly manifested in a Triad of 
ways ; and they could join the poet in affirming " One 
God, One Law, One Element." * 

Their " Ritual of the Dead " represents the soul by 
the symbol of the God Ea, holding the two rings of 
eternity, or carrying the ring-handled cross— the em- 

* Sir G.Wilkinson ; Rawlinson, " Religions Ancient World," pp. 
31, 32, 36-38. 



GOD IN CREATION. 49 

blem of life. Small figures of Osiris or a scarabaeus 
were placed on or near the dead. The pious soul, hav- 
ing finished its earthly pilgrimage, at length arrives at 
the bark of the sun, and is received by Ka, and feasts 
on delicious food. But the wicked are condemned, 
some to a long course of torments — life in various un- 
clean animals — and then to annihilation, which was ter- 
rible for an Egyptian to contemplate. It is a striking 
fact that the Egyptian " god who was the giver of life 
becomes its redeemer and saviour ; having himself been 
raised from death, he conducts the just to resurrection." 
(P. Smith.) He was their saviour and their lord. He 
speaks to them, and they speak to him ; his glory illu- 
minates them. They had prepared themselves by sac- 
rifice, by prayers, by a righteous life and good deeds for 
the enjoyment of Osiris and his blessedness. But the 
very wicked, even the kings of Egypt, were an abhor- 
rence to gods and men. * 

10. The burnt bricks of Babylon and Nineveh testify 
to their peoples' belief in a great God, called II or Ilou, 
corresponding to the Hebrew El and the Egyptian Ra. 
His first temple was Babil, erected by Nimrod at Babel ; 
meaning the gate or house of God. II was superior to 
their other gods. He was before chaos, before crea- 
tion, before man. To him the first Babylonian hero 
built a temple, and without any development from the 
ancient national usages. Their temple was contempo- 
raneous with their capital ; built in the lifetime of their 
first royal benefactor ; prior to any famous burial, and 
before the death of their hero ; probably before their 
polytheism. In this temple II was worshipped, sacri- 

* Sir G. Wilkinson ; Kenrick, vol. i., p. 409 ; Rawlinson, " Re- 
ligions Anoient World," pp. 28-30. 
3 



50 GOD IN CREATION. 

ficed to and believed in, before Babylonians believed in 
ghosts, spectres, and omens. They were religious be- 
fore they became superstitious and polytheistic, had a 
great temple before a great tomb, before a known hero 
or a ghost. 

Their " Saints' Calendar" is instructive as to their 
ritual — worship and days of sacrifice— a ritual for every- 
day. It has been translated from the Inscriptions, and 
gives the order of doing religious duties and performing 
religious services. It is of course later than the origin 
of those duties and services. It prescribes suitable sac- 
rifices for the first day of the month, sacred to Anu and 
Bel. " The king his offering made, a gazelle without 
blemish, to the mighty God. Kaising his right hand 
to the altar, the Prince of many nations worshipped. " 
He acted as priest of the Moon, called the mighty mon- 
arch of the night, and as priest of the Sun, called the 
great Lady of the world. Sacrifices were also appoinU^ j* 
ed for each day and for each Sabbath — i.e., for the ^*w?>^^^ 
fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth of each 
month, these were Sabbaths ; and every day had its 
sacrifice. Later on each month became sacred to some 
particular deity, like May with modern Roman Catho- 
lics. But from the earliest of Babylonian times, the 
first day of each month and its several sevenths were 
strict Sabbaths, when no work might be done, no legis- 
lation enacted, no pleasures sought in the chase or other- 
wise ; not even medicine procured for the sick, whether 
prince or peasant. They were days of sanctity and sac- 
rifice. Only Jewish and Puritan Sabbaths can be 
compared with them. No theory of ecclesiastical de- 
velopment can explain them. They were five hundred 
to a thousand years before Moses.* 

* " Records of the Past," vol. vii., pp. 159-70. 



GOD IN CREATION. 51 

As early as the time of Abraham the divine names 
had increased to a dozen or more : II or Ilou was first, 
then Ami and Hea, Bel, Nergal, Istar, Asshur, with 
live great though created, gods.* This shows the de- 
velopment into polytheism was later than their original 
conceptions of Godhead : after Ea was his Triad ; so 
after II was his Triad, followed by others ; so after the 
Hebrew Jah or Jahveh Elohim some later Israelites fell 
into idolatry. But in each nation the first idea and 
conception of God was in Unity, belief in One Supreme 
Being, from whom all lesser gods proceeded or were 
derived. 

11. It was the same in India, Atman included all 
other deities. The earliest nation had the simplest idea 
of Godhead. The simple was primary, not the mani- 
fold and complex. Very ancient w r as the idea of God 
in Triunity, which Hegel holds to be the essential con- 
ception of God as eternal, living Spirit, fully revealed 
in Christianity, which is the ultimate and absolute re- 
ligion. It was to God in Unity that temples were first 
erected and sacrifices offered. No historic nation is 
without its god, as before anything else, superior to all 
else, worshipped and honored before hero or ghost. 
Ka, II, Jah, El, Zeus, were before all other gods, or as 
expressing the same idea, was the One God Supreme in 
Egypt, Babylon, Judea, India, Greece. So Pope's 
translation of the Iliad makes Homer to sing : 

" The united strength of all the gods above 
In vain resists the omnipotence of Jove. 

" Juno, submit, and seek not thou to find 
The secret counsels of almighty mind." 

— Book I., ad fin. 



* See " Records of the Past," vols, iii., vii., ix. 



52 GOD IN CREATION 

Moreover, when the various deities of the older na- 
tions might be counted by hundreds or even thousands, 
the theology of Gauls and Britons was very simple. 
They had long reverenced God and sacrificed to Him, 
before they wandered into the mazes of polytheism or 
developed a pantheon. Very simple were their theistic 
ideas, even when they had a flourishing commerce, which 
exerted an influence upon and brought them into ac- 
quaintance with the inhabitants of the Persian Gulf, 
the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris, as well as 
the dwellers in Palestine, the shores of the Mediterra- 
nean and of the Western Isles. Yet their records are 
barren, and afford no ground for believing that tombs 
and sepulchres were the originals of temples and shrines 
to any Deity. Witness the Pyramid atGizeh, the great 
temples at Karnak and Luxor, of Belus at Babylon, of 
Jehovah at Jerusalem, even of Apollo at Delphi, as well 
as the famous temples at Baalbec and Palmyra. These 
were among the first erected by man in those several 
countries, yet they were in no sense tombs or burial- 
places, though some partook of a monumental as w T ell 
as sacred character, designed for sacrifice and the wor- 
ship of Deity. Singular, too, that among so many 
other discoveries only one sepulchre and not one Assyrian 
burial temple has yet been found ; but several altars 
have been discovered in that region. Not one chapel 
for all the Assyrian dead. Indeed, says Layard, " The 
Assyrians appear to have avoided all allusions to their 
dead and to funeral rites. Did they burn or expose them, 
like the Persians ?" * From the custom of burning and 
exposure in India, there could be few ancient remains 
of sepulchres. And that originally they had but One 

* " Babylon and Nineveh," p. 481. 



ODD IN CREATION. 53 

Eternally Existing Supreme Being, later expressed by 
his manifold attributes, is now pretty generally con- 
ceded. The Hindus belong to the great Aryan race, 
like the Persians and Britons, so that few radical theo- 
logical differences probably existed among them. But 
a word from Max Mliller is appropriate. He says : 
" Whenever we can trace back a religion to its first begin- 
nings, we find it free from many blemishes that affected 
it in its later stages." * This is true of the religions 
of India three thousand years ago. Again he says : 
" Religion is trust, and that trust arose in the begin- 
ning from impressions made on the mind and heart of 
man by the order and wisdom of nature — the re- 
turn of the sun, the revival of the moon, the order of 
the seasons, the law/>f cause and effect traced back to 
a cause of all causes, by whatever name we choose 
to call it. The principal god of the Vedic period, 
judging from the poetic remains, we may call Indra, 
the god of the blue sky, the gatherer of clouds, the 
giver of rain, the wielder of the thunderbolt, the con- 
queror of all the powers of darkness, the bringer of light, 
the source of freshness, vigor, and life, the ruler and 
lord of the world, the Indian Zeus,"f elsewhere called 
the Zeus father and generator, " Dyaush pita ganita," 
the Heaven-Father of the Sanscrit and the earliest 
Vedic hymns. When corruption had degraded the an- 
cient religions, then reformers arose. Buddha was a 
reformer, asserting the Oneness and Personality of 
God. Confucius was a reformer, teaching right living 
and duty to Heaven. Zoroaster was also a reformer, as 
well as an original teacher. If he ever conquered Baby- 

* " Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i., p. 23. 
t " What Can India Teach Us?" pp. 198-201. 



54 GOD IN CREATION. 

Ion, it was probably in the religions sense, turning the 
people for a time to the worship of One God, who, he 
claimed, inspired him in occasional interviews. Thus 
he was enabled to teach the true doctrine to happy 
Bactria.* So of Mahomet. His life was purer and his 
doctrine more spiritual when his voice was a solitary 
voice crying in the wilderness, than when accompanied 
by a myriad of followers. Indeed, the original teaching 
of all known founders of religious systems was uniformly 
higher and more spiritual than that of later disciples, f 
12. As to China, amid much complexity, the most 
recent accounts of its theology agree with the principles 
for which we contend in this paper. Confucius him- 
self belongs to the sixth century B.C. So Dr. Legge, 
etc. He was a moral philosopher, the contemporary of 
Pythagoras, though probably they never met. By the 
great splendor with which he celebrated the funeral of 
his mother, he revived the old usages of his people in 
respect for the dead. But he believed in a Cod far 
above and superior to them. The monarch became his 
representative on earth. He taught silence and intro- 
spection by asking, Does Heaven speak ? We see re- 
sults of God's operations, but do we hear Heaven ? The 
path of duty is to be traced to its origin in Heaven. 
The superior man waits for the appointments of Heaven, 
while the mean man is looking for lucky occurrences. 
Even the sovereign may not neglect the improvement 
of his character, nor to serve his parents, nor to acquire 
the knowledge of men and of Heaven. Sincerity is the 
way of Heaven ; the attainment of sincerity the way of 
men. Mencius derived his doctrine of concord or love 



* Rawlinson, " Religions Ancient World," p. 64. 

f Argyll, " Unity of Nature," chap, xii., pp. 294, 295. 



GOD IN CREATION. 55 

from the goodness and paternity of God. It was the 
Divine will that men should love one another. Men 
are complete and perfect only as they do the complete 
and perfect will of Heaven. Even the prince and king 
must be corrected when wrong. If the king will not re- 
form his great faults, he ought to be dethroned ; pretty 
democratic doctrine. Let the prince be benevolent and 
righteous. Let him be correct in all his acts, and the 
kingdom will be firmly settled. This is far from teach- 
ing the Divinity of the King. Again it is said, Be- 
nevolence, righteousness, self-consecration, fidelity, with 
unwearied joy in these virtues, constitute the nobility of 
Heaven ; to be a king or a ta-foo constitutes the no- 
bility of man. Men of antiquity cultivated the nobility 
of Heaven, and the nobility of man came to them. To 
condense another paragraph : Men reverse the true 
order, miss the mark, and lose the reward of true no- 
bility. Ennobled by Chaou the Great, He fills them 
with His wine ; He satiates us with His goodness. 

'* Heaven in producing mankind, 

Gave them their various faculties and relations, with their specific 

laws. 
These are the invariable rules of nature for all to hold, 
And all should love this admirable virtue." 

Said Confucius, " The maker of this ode knew the 
principle of our nature." 

Our recent missionaries to China give a similar inter- 
pretation of Confucius and the classic belief — belief in 
the personality, spiritual nature, justice, benevolence, 
and omnipotence of God, the Supreme Ruler, who was 
also called Heaven. Says Dr. Moule, the Bishop of 
Mid-China, " Confucius undoubtedly believed in a Di- 
vine power ; a God, the Lord paramount of the earthly 



56 GOD IN CREATION. 

monarch ; a God who heard and saw the actions of 
men, and sent down weal and woe according to the jus- 
tice of their deserts." Again, " Above the heavens is 
Heaven, " is said with finger pointing upward when 
taking an oath. "It is man's to scheme ; it is 
Heaven's to accomplish." "In times of deep afflic- 
tion Chinamen are known to omit all the usual forms 
of worship in their temples, and prostrating themselves 
before an open window or on the ground in the open 
air, to pray earnestly to Heaven. Some regularly wor- 
ship Heaven, offering prayers and burning incense to 
Him. The annual and solemn service of the Emperor 
is of this character, the sacrifice and worship being 
under the open sky — an immemorial custom shedding 
light on the primeval faith. But this ancient faith has 
become greatly obscured in China. Many, while be- 
lieving in the Supreme Being, infinite in power and 
goodness, also worship inferior divinities, and pay di- 
vine honors to Confucius. But this is of comparatively 
recent origin, showing that it is only a counterfeit of 
the true original. Yet occasionally one finds a China- 
man who rejects all forms of polytheism, and holds the 
primitive faith as taught in the ancient classics." Says 
the Eev. W. Muirhead, of Shanghai, of the London 
Missionary Society : " A particular case came before 
me a short time ago, of a man from the westerly part of 
China. He was interested in what I said, but, owing to 
his different dialect, failed to comprehend the address, 
until I had personal conversation with him in his own 
dialect, when we had a long interview. He maintained 
the ancient monotheism of the Chinese in the strongest 
manner, and quoted passages from the classics to that 
effect. He had never before heard the Word or read 
any Christian books, but had drawn his ideas of religion 



OOD IN CREATION. 57 

from the ancient classics of his country."* To the 
objection against this early belief of the Chinese in one 
true God, Dr. Martin says : " The idea of God is ex- 
pressed in their ancient books with so much clearness 
as to make us wonder and lament that it has left so 
faint an impression on the national mind/' He pre- 
sents proofs of the knowledge of God from those ancient 
books, and then shows how in subsequent ages the re- 
ligious sentiment was frittered away.f The Rev. Dr. 
EdkinsJ says : " No doctrine is more manifestly an ar- 
ticle of faith than the personality of God." And, p. 
116 : " The ancient Chinese believed in God as a per- 
sonal, active being, the ruler of heaven and earth, just, 
powerful, and merciful." Hence the polytheism and 
ancestor worship of China lend no aid to Mr. Spencer's 
notion of ecclesiastical evolution. The Chinese were 
believers in and worshippers of a Supreme Being, before 
they deified a king or adored a parent. It was Heaven 
who ennobled men. 

1 13. As to ghosts, most people who have believed in 
them were more concerned with " how to lay them," 
than how to honor them ; how to confuse and discomfit 
them, in order to prevent their troubling the living. 
Charles II. of Spain was largely affected by his supersti- 
tious and ghostly terrors ; but no one will affirm that 
such terrors were evolved from his religion. A people 
may transform in imagination their heroes and kings 
into divinities, as good wives are wont to regard their 
husbands as better than other men, and erect memorials 
to them. Witness England's Queen and her monu- 

* See article by Eev. John Liggins, in Spirit of Missions for May, 
1887. 

f Rev. J. Liggins, " The Chinese," by Dr. Martin, p. 100. 
\ " Religious Condition of the Chinese," p. 79. 



58 GOD IN CREATION. 

ments to Prince Albert. Thus Roman kings were 
placed among the gods of the Empire, and their statues 
placed in the Pantheon. But did intelligent Eomans 
really worship a deified emperor ? Does Queen Victoria 
actually worship her departed consort in any similar 
way to her worship of God ? Great as we honor some 
national benefactors, heroes in war and giants in states- 
manship, we ever distinguish our regard for them from 
our reverence for God. 

14. So was it among the earliest nations. We have 
yet to learn of any historic people who deified a hero 
or propitiated a ghost before they believed in God and 
worshipped Him. In Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, 
Scythia, India, China, Britain, and probably even in 
Greece, a Supreme God, omnipotent, the Creator and 
Ruler of all, was the primitive belief. To Him temples 
were erected at a very early period and forms of wor- 
ship established. Thus in the days of Seth men called 
upon the Lord, as Jahn says, in public assemblies. 
Thus Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and offered 
burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a 
sweet savor ; a record of acceptable worship, which has 
its parallel among the inscriptions of a time ages before 
Moses. They also give the Divine blessing to the saved 
man and his family. The Babylonian account of 
Noah's sacrifice reads in the plural : "The gods col- 
lected to the burning ; the gods collected to the good 
burning. Over the sacrifice they gathered."* But 
clearly there was then no polytheism?. It was a later 
inscriber who expressed the idea. This change by the 
scribe may account for other polytheistic phrases in 

* G. Smith's "Chaldean Account in Genesis," pp. 273-276; 
" Records of the Past," vol. xi., p. 141 ; vol. vii., pp. 131-141. 



GOD IN CREATION. 59 

early records. An old Babylonian thus prayed : " Like 
a bird may the soul fly to a lofty place ! To the holy 
hands of God may it ascend. May the soul shine ra- 
diant. Eldest Son of Heaven, grant him an abode of 
happiness/'* " There was one place — apparently a 
penal fire — reserved for unfaithful wives and husbands, 
and for youths who had dishonored their bodies." 
So the Hindus : " To those regions, where evil spirits 
dwell, and which utter darkness involves, will such men 
surely go after death, as destroy the purity of their own 

soul."f 

15. Now what is there in opposition to all this 

cumulative and increasing evidence of the Divine 
origin of instruction to man touching God and His 
worship in primitive times and among historic na- 
tions ? just this, that among the Bongos, Samoans, 
Wedda, and some American Indians are to be found 
examples to which a different explanation may be given ! 
But should that offset the testimony of civilization, and 
nullify the almost universal consciousness of mankind ? 
What is there in Greece or Rome, after the eighth cen- 
tury B.C. — and there was nothing previously — that can 
overturn the proof to be found in the case of Noah, as 
recorded in Genesis and in those Chaldean brick in- 
scriptions which narrate the same event? Even if you 
question the account of Moses, how will you dispose of 
the Babylonian Record ? The two are a thousand years 
and two thousand miles apart ; they agree in sub- 
stance as to Noah and his acceptable sacrifice, as well 
as that God imparted instruction to man touching his 
duty to God. Add to this the worship of Cain and 

* " Records of the Past," vol. i., p. 143 ; vol. iii., p. 134. 
f Crauford's " India," vol. i., p. 191. 



60 GOD IN CREATION. 

Abel, Seth and Enoch, Abraham, Melchisedec, and 
Jethro, the long line of Hebrew prophets who prepared 
the way for Christ ; and then conclude, if your intelli- 
gence will let you, that Christianity is the outcome of 
hero-worship, and Jesus Christ but a Hebrew Ghost ! 
For myself, I could as soon believe all the marvels of 
the " Arabian Nights."* 

16. And to be scientific and trustworthy, the religion 
of each historic nation must be accounted for, each for 
itself and by itself. Christians derive theirs from He- 
brews, buttressed now by the inscribed records of other 
Semitic nations ; also attested to by the earliest belief 
of the great Japhite or Aryan family and by the old 
Hamites of Egypt. So, like Kepler, we may say, " 
Almighty God, we are but thinking Thy thoughts after 
Thee !" — thoughts of Creation ; thoughts of Divine 
Providence ; thoughts of God's everlasting love to 
man ; thoughts of return to Him in our habitual wor- 
ship of Him. Like the Psalmist, we may say : " The 
day is Thine, and also the night ; Thou hast prepared 
the light and the sun ; the borders of the earth, sum- 
mer, and winter. Arise, God, plead Thine own cause ; 
see how foolish men reproach Thee daily'' (Ps. 74). 
For, of Thee, the First Cause, and through Thee, the 
Efficient Cause, and to Thee, the Final Consummation, 
are derived all our knowledge, all our worship, and all 
our love of Thee (Komans 11 : 33-36). 

* See Dawson's " Fossil Man." 



III. 



ANCIENT LEGENDS ABOUT GOD AND 
CREATION. 

With our present knowledge of the cosmogony of the 
ancient Egyptians, we may safely say that they believed 
matter was a creation of the breath of the Supreme and 
Eternal God. Thus Jamblichus quotes an old Hermetic 
book as saying : " Before all the things that actually 
exist, and before all beginnings, there is one God, prior 
even to the first (created) god and king, remaining un- 
moved in the singleness of His own Unity. " His name, 
know r n only to those who were initiated into the high- 
est mysteries, was " Nuk Pu Nuk" or " I am that I 
am," the same that was revealed to Moses (Ex. 3 : 14). 
It had been known to the priests of Egypt as an esoteric 
truth, hidden from the people, buried in allegorical 
representations of Divine qualities and attributes, con- 
cealed in monstrous combinations of animal and human 
forms, which the people ignorantly worshipped as di- 
vinities. Thus though the name revealed by Moses w r as 
not new to the Egyptian priests, it was quite new to 
their people, to Egyptians and Israelites then in the 
land of the Nile. Only the more privileged and those 
initiated into the profounder mysteries attained such 
knowledge. Says Plutarch, there was an inscription on 
the temple of Sais which read : "I am all that was, 
and is, and will be. ? ' 



02 GOD IN CREATION. 

The papyri tell us " that there was an original gen- 
erator in heaven and on earth, who was not engendered, 
who was verily the sole living God, self-engendered, 
who was from the beginning, who created all, but was 
Himself uncreated." The oldest piece of literature in 
the world, according to Eenouf (" Hibbert Lectures," 
p. 197), is a hymn to the Maker of Heaven and Earth, 
the Self-existent One, Living in the Truth. This was 
the first belief, one or two millenniums before Greek 
and Latin writers visited the Black Country of the 
Nile. Latterly this idea of Divine, Original Lenity be- 
came lost in the plurality of his manifestations ; but 
the priests had long known it, and had taught it to the 
privileged few. 

The Supreme God was also called Amun, who created 
his associates, and made them members of his pantheon. 
Amun imparted the living principle to Maut, who then 
became the universal Mother. Amun and Maut created 
the heavens and the earth. Of this world the sun was 
the great vivifier, and was regarded as the source as 
well as the sign of life : the great father. Shining in 
the firmament above he was superior to all other heav- 
enly lights, the universal lord. Egyptian ideas of 
creation were that it was a growth in stages of develop- 
ment, by the agency of certain gods, who were created 
by the One Supreme God, as matter also was created by 
Him. The earliest written language of Babylonia con- 
tains verbal resemblances with that of Egypt and Ethio- 
pia ; some words being common to each and to the 
Hebrew. Thus the Divine names El and II or Ilou, Ra 
and Jah, seem to be derived from the same roots. Says 
Max Miiller : " Zeus in Sanscrit, Latin, and German 
shows us the same Deity in India, Greece, and Italy, 
when no Greek had set foot in Europe, and no Hindu 



GOD IN CREATION. 63 

had bathed in the sacred water of the Ganges. Zeus 
was the great Heaven-Father, the Generator of all." 
(" Hibbert Lectures,' 7 p. 277.) 

The Babylonian narrative of creation belongs to the 
upper or Accadian division of Chaldea, and is probably 
not later than the time of Abraham. It is of great an- 
tiquity, five centuries before Moses. Those legends, 
with their poetic fancies, were not the original form of 
the narrative, but the later accounts derived from tra- 
ditions, of what had been handed down touching 
those matters. Thus the creation legends of Chaldea 
are the embellished accounts of previously known facts 
which had been transmitted by tradition, and then in- 
scribed upon the bricks and cylinders — the books of 
those times — and placed in libraries. The Accadians 
are treated by some as of an unknown period. They 
overlook what Genesis (10 : 8-10) tells us, that Nimrod 
was the son of Cush or Kash, and the beginning of his 
kingdom was Babel, Erech, Calneh, and Accad. This 
people, therefore, are after Nimrod, and in the line of 
divinely imparted knowledge from Noah. Sumir is an 
old name for Lower Babylonia, of which Ur was the 
capital city. It was the birthplace of Abraham. 

None of those Accadian bricks have been preserved to 
us, so far as yet discovered. But in the seventh century 
before our era Assurbanipal sent to Babylon, and had 
copies of them made for his royal library at Nineveh. 
Thus the literary treasures of Babylon, Borsippa, 
Cutha, Accad, Ur, Erech, Lorsa, Nipur, and other 
cities were copied and transferred to Assyria. It was 
a great undertaking, and successfully carried out, and 
has yielded vast increase to our knowledge. Many of 
those brick volumes have been discovered during the 
present generation ; some are broken ; some but frag- 



64 GOD IN CREATION. 

mentary records ; some have but a single word on a 
line ; yet enough can be made out and translated to in- 
form us of this nineteenth century a.d. of what was 
believed in the nineteenth century B.C., touching the 
creation of our world. 

Assurbanipal was the son of Esarhaddon, who was the 
son of Sennacherib, who was the son of Sargon, who, 
then reigning King of Assyria, captured Samaria in 721 
B.C., destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and 
carried its principal citizens into his dominions. The 
position and relations of the Southern Kingdom of 
Judah were much like those of our colonies to England 
during the reign of George III. We cannot believe that 
Assurbanipal borrowed his literary treasures from cap- 
tive Israelites, or that Hebrews in Judea received their 
sacred writings and religious ideas from Assyria, as 
original documents. It is not consonant with the laws 
of our nature. Whether those legends and traditions 
are true or false, credible or incredible, they were not 
derived from Israelites, nor originally communicated to 
Jews by Assyrians ; but they were of great antiquity, 
common among the various nations who were descended 
from Noah. " Babylonia has been called the China of 
the ancient world. It was a kingdom of books and li- 
braries, schools and universities, of learning and litera- 
ture ; education opened the way, as in China, to state 
employment ; and the London Times suggests that com- 
petitive examinations may have existed for the civil ser- 
vice. Every great Babylonian city had at least one li- 
brary. The most famous of these was founded at Agane 
by Sargon I. before the seventeenth century B.C. This 
contained the great work on astronomy and astrology, 
in seventy-two volumes, which was translated into 
Greek. 



GOD IN CREATION. 65 

" The Assyrians derived their literature from the 
Babylonians, for they were not primarily a literary 
people, but warriors and legislators, like the Romans. 
This library of Nineveh was established by Assurbani- 
pal, and the early libraries of Assyria, as well as of 
Babylonia, were despoiled to make it, and scribes were 
kept copying and re-editing the old literature of 
Chaldea." Mr. Sayce says : " A new text was the most 
valuable present a Babylonian city could send, and it 
w r as prized with almost the same enthusiasm as a classi- 
cal manuscript in the age of the Renaissance.' ' The 
discoveries of the spade upon the Tigris and the Eu- 
phrates, Egyptologists and modern research prove and 
illustrate their origin and their meaning beyond rea- 
sonable doubt. It is, in fact, more irrational to reject 
than to accept the demonstrable evidence. 

The seventh Chaldean Tablet records the existence 
of One Supreme Deity, who created lesser gods ; says 
that great monsters were produced by chaos, delightful 
or perfect after their kind ; that then the living crea- 
tures began to be : the cattle of the field, and the creep- 
ing things of the field ; a place was fixed for the living 
creatures. According to others, there was a period 
when nothing existed but chaos, darkness, and an abyss 
of waters, in which hideous monsters were produced by 
a twofold living principle of good and of evil. The 
order of creation is thus given : 

" When above were not raised the heavens, and be- 
low on earth a plant had not grown up ; when the 
abyss had not broken open their boundaries ; chaos (or 
water) Tiamat (the sea) was the producing mother of 
the whole of them. The gods Lahma or Lahama == Ana 
and Anata, the male and the female, were the living 
principle of creation in the universe. Then Thou didst 



G6 QOD IN CREATION. 

call or order the foundation of the ground ; Thou didst 
beautify the heaven, and the face of heaven ; Thou didst 
give beauty to the earth. Let the earth, Thou saidst, 
be made for the dwelling of man." Such seems to be 
the meaning of the narrative. And the fifth tablet- 
says : " It was delightful, all that was fixed by the great 
gods. Stars, in appearance as animals, he arranged. 
To fix the year through the observation of the constel- 
lations, twelve months or signs of stars in three rows he 
arranged, from the day when the year commences unto 
the close. He marked the positions of the wandering 
stars (planets) to shine in their courses. And that they 
might do no injury, nor trouble any one, the positions 
of the gods Bel and Hea he fixed with them." * By 
this arrangement a superintending Providence over 
creation's work is evidently taught. 

Some assign the creation of mankind to Hea, who 
pronounced in detail the duties of the man and of the 
woman, respectively : " he for sacrifice, prayer, reverent 
worship, with instrumental music ; she to beautify for 
him ; not to do evil ; to give him drink, refreshment ; 
to be faithful; his enemies to be her enemies." All 
which is quite up to the standard of Milton. " Hea 
was angry when man corrupted his purity ; all his seed 
may he destroy. In the language of the fifty great gods 
by his fifty names he called, and turned away in anger 
from him. May he be conquered, and at once cut off. 
Enmity and plunder to father and son, to father and 
son enmity and plunder. The fruits of the earth may 
he not touch ; his desire cut off, disappointed ; his will 
not answered : the prayer of his mouth let no god hear, 

* Chaldean Account in Genesis, pp. 62-70 ; " Records of the 
Past," vol. ix., pp. 117, 118. 



QOD IN CREATION. 67 

no god shall notice ; his back shall be broken, and shall 
not be healed ; in urgent trouble no god shall relieve 
him ; his heart shall be poured out, his mind shall be 
troubled. To sin and sorrow his face shall come.' ' One 
fine fragment presents a parallel account to the biblical 
version of the fourth day's work. Another begins with 
saying that the previous creations were ' ' delightful/ ' 
or satisfactory, agreeing with the oft-repeated phrase, 
" And God saw that it was good." 

Babylonian accounts of the solar system give the crea- 
tion of the moon as before the creation of the sun, in 
the reverse order of Genesis, which anticipated the 
modern theory of creation, and makes the sun, the cen- 
tral orb, to have been created before the moon and 
planets which revolve around him. It is a remarkable 
difference, occurring at so early a period. " In the be- 
ginning arose Hiranyagarbha who established the earth 
and the sky. Who is the god to whom we shall offer 
our sacrifice ? He is alone God above all gods." (" Rig- 
Veda," X., 121.) Remembering that none of these sacred 
books were written before a.d. 1500, and that for the 
three thousand years previously they were carried in the 
memories of men — near one hundred and fifty-four 
thousand words, more than is contained in the Greek 
language — that these were orally taught the pupil gen- 
eration after generation, it requires a very large measure 
of faith, more than the Christian is expected to possess, 
to believe in the verbal transmission of the " Rig- 
Veda," that it was not changed in thought and form of 
expression since first sung by the poets. Yet Max 
Mtiller rejects the Indian account of the Deluge as being 
derived from the biblical. Now that the Chaldean 
legend confirms both, he must yield his objection. 
There is another point which he must surrender— viz., 



68 GOD IN CREATION. 

the early accounts that water or chaos was the original 
source from which the world was formed. Thus in Gen- 
esis 1 : 2 it was chaos before the Spirit of God brooded 
upon the face of the waters. Then the chaos of waters 
gave birth to all.* li The great waters went everywhere, 
holding the seed and generating the fire, thence arose 
he who is the sole life of the gods. " f This correspond- 
ence suggests a common original. 

The Hindu religion may be classed into belief in 
Three Beyonds : the Beyond of Nature, or belief in God ; 
in " the Bright ones :" the Beyond of life, or belief in 
a world of departed spirits ; but these two had an in- 
dependent origin, and represented different phases or 
development of worship, of which the second was after 
the first ; while the third Beyond was the eternal Law 
of Right, or " that which makes for righteousness'' both 
within us and without. Back of Agni and Indra and 
of all later deities, the old Indian sages believed in 
Atman, who was behind mind and reason, the objective 
Self, the Very Self, the God most God, most dear, the 
Life of life. ^; The religion of Aryan India was in de- 
velopment during fifteen hundred years. First there 
was the worship of one invisible, living, holy God, called 
Varuna ; this declined to reverence for the mere forces 
of nature. There were ancient hymns to Varuna ; and, 
second, to Indra, who appears at times like a mediator 
to them that invoke him. Agni, the fire god, and 
Mitra came afterward ; Varuna holding the first place 
in Vedic worship about B.C. 1500, then Indra from B.C. 

* "Records of the Past," vol. ix., p. 117. 

f " Rig- Veda," X., v. 7, Max Miiller's " Henotheisin," Contem- 
porary Review, November, 1878. See his " What can India Teach 
Us," Lectures VI., VII. 

} See Max Miiller's " What India Can Teach Us," ch. 7. 



GOD IN CREATION. 69 

1400 to 1000. Not till a half millennium after Varunan 
supremacy was the worship of ancestors developed by 
the Brahmans. This in fact was a perversion of the 
old Vedic teachings. So Ebrard in iC Christian Apolo- 
getics," vol. ii., pp. 165 and sub. 

In the use of Divine names there was no authorized 
standard in India. Each large community and local 
centre had their own uses ; the poets took advantage of 
this, and sung the name or attribute which they pre- 
ferred. Hence what was said of Varuna by one poet 
might by another be ascribed to Indra, to Mitra, or to 
Parganya. Says Max Miiller : " They speak of Mitra, 
Varuna, Agni ; then he is the heavenly bird G-arutmat ; 
that which is and is one the poets call in various ways."* 

Apart from the extent of the Noachian Deluge there 
is the recorded after-sacrifice, when, according to Gen- 
esis, the Lord smelled a sweet savor, or accepted the 
sacrifice. It is noticeable that the Chaldean version 
gives it in the plural : the gods collected at the sacri- 
fice ; the gods collected at the good burning ; over the 
sacrifice they gathered, "f Here is a variation by 
the inscriber, who expressed the idea in phrase common 
to his polytheism. Says Max Miiller, " That ancient 
theologian who lived in the fifth century B.C., who told 
us that all the gods had been discovered to be but three 
gods, also tells us that in reality there is but one God, 
whom he calls Atman, the self" (" India," p. 265). 
Probably, as certain Chaldean copyists pluralized cer- 
tain words and deities, so did certain Indian teachers 
of the Veda. Like the Egyptians, they often deified 

* " Eig Veda," i., 164, 46 ; " Hibbert Lectures, " p. 311 ; " India," 
pp. 205, 265. 
f " Records of the Past," vol. ix., p. 118 ; vii., p. 141. 



70 GOD IN CREATION. 

qualities and actions, which they admired, appreciated, 
and then adored. R. S. Poole holds to the mono- 
theism of early Egypt. See Encyclopaedia Britannica 
and its authorities. 

The prophets were the guardians as well as the writ- 
ers of the Hebrew Scriptures. They preserved the sense 
and meaning as well as the verbal accuracy. Thus in 
Genesis (14 : 14) we read not the ancient name Laish, 
or Leshem (as in Judges 15 : 14, 27, 29, and Joshua 
19 : 47), but Dan ; a name, however, not given to that 
place till five hundred years afterward. By the prophets 
"imperishable fragments of Israelite poetry and 
prophecy have been borne to us safely on the waves of 
the far-off ocean of primeval history.' ' Thus it was 
with the creation narrative and many other records. 

The Chaldean accounts begin with a description of 
the period before the world was created, when only 
chaos or disorder existed, when desolation and darkness 
reigned, and before the work of adornment began. The 
creative work is represented to have been done in stages, 
or periods, as in Genesis, the gods surveying each step 
of the work, and pronouncing it very good, or delightful. 

Moreover, this mundane adornment culminates in the 
formation of man, who, the bricks tell us, was created 
upright and free from evil, and was endowed by the gods 
Avith the noble faculty of speech. The Deity then de- 
livers a long address to the newly created being, in- 
structing him in all his duties and privileges, pointing 
out the glory of his state. But this happy condition 
does not long continue before man, yielding to tempta- 
tion, falls into wrongdoing. Then the Deity "pro- 
nounces a terrible curse, invoking upon him all the evils 
which have since afflicted humanity." But Genesis, 
while it relates the fact of man's fall, through the 



GOD IN CREATION. 71 

temptation of a hostile power opposed to God, is grand 
in its brevity and simple outline. Here the bricks and 
cylinders are full of detailed representations. They 
give us a sacred tree ; they place a man and a woman 
on either side of the tree, and portray a serpent the en- 
tire length of the cylinder ! Nor do they stop there, but 
go on and represent cherubim as guarding that tree, 
and then relate a fierce conflict between those cherubim 
and the dragon. They also include the serpent in the 
curse pronounced upon man, he having sinned as well 
as the man, and having caused him to sin ! It is sub- 
stantially the account of Genesis in Chaldea. 

One of the tablets records the sin of Zu, which must 
have been heinous, for it aroused the anger of Bel, and 
caused Ami to call on his sons to slay Zu ; but they, 
instead of killing him, entreated Anu that he should be 
expelled from the company of the gods. It is a legend 
which may have arisen from belief in the fall of the 
angels. 

Quite remarkable is it that among the earliest tradi- 
tions of creation and human existence there should be 
so many which relate to punishment and destruction. 
Very early there was a god of Pestilence, called Lubara, 
who when angry was so destructive that the seven good 
gods were invoked to turn him aside from carrying out 
his purposes. 

An Assyrian copy of an old Babylonian text from the 
library of Gutha gives an ancient Accadian legend of 
destruction, thus : '' Warriors with bodies of birds of 
ttue desert, men w T ith the faces of ravens, these the great 
gods created. In their wrath they created the city. 
They became strong and numerous — seven kings— 6000 
armies — the evil curse in blood — 120,000 soldiers went 
forth the first year. In the second year 90,000 soldiers ; 



72 GOD IN CREATION, 

in the third year 60,700 soldiers — not one returned ; they 
were removed, they were smitten with sickness. The 
foundations of the earth were shaken." Thus early did 
pestilence and war afflict mankind, through the alleged 
intervention of the gods. This was graphically ex- 
pressed by the Hindus : " Vast rivers dried up ; moun- 
tains torn up ; the pole itself moved from its place ; the 
cords of the stars rent asunder ; the whole earth itself 
deluged with water ; even angels hurled from their 
stations."* 

There is also a mythological account of the crea- 
tion, wherein Bel is made to end the rule of the mon- 
sters of chaos by setting the sun, moon, and stars in 
the heavens. Then the evil spirits, emblems of chaos, 
presume to resist these creative changes of Bel, and they 
dare even to make war on the moon, the eldest son or 
creation of Bel. They draw over to their side the sun, 
Venus, and the atmospheric god, Vul. When Bel hears 
of this opposition, he takes advice of Ilea, and then puts 
down the resistance. Thus the cosmos is completed, 
with the moon as the principal orb of the system. 

Genesis, I repeat, corrects this arrangement, and gives 
the sun the central position in our world system. 
Abraham, who observed the courses of the heavenly 
bodies, may have understood their true relation and de- 
pendence, and so have handed down to his posterity the 
order as given in Genesis. Or Moses and later prophets 
may have been inspired in their narrative and editor- 
ship of the creation records ; but certain it is that no 
yet deciphered bricks of Babylonia agree in this scien- 
tific putting with our biblical account. This makes for 
its independent origin. It is a variation which could 
not have been accidental. 

* From a Pandit in Craufurd's " India," vol. i., p. 197. . 



GOD IN CREATION. 73 

Providential oversight, or the Divine government 
of the universe, is also very differently put by Baby- 
lonians and Hebrews. The former held that the huge 
monsters generated by chaos, though grotesque and 
powerful, were not necessarily ferocious and destruc- 
tive ; that created by the breath of God, they were 
immortal ; and so by a poetic fancy they transferred 
them to the heavens as guardians of the worlds, in 
order that no harm should arise from collision of the 
revolving spheres in the firmament. Hence too the 
signs of the Zodiac. Says Aratus : " God Himself 
placed these signs in the Heaven, having set apart the 
stars." But the Hebrews ascribed such minute knowl- 
edge to God, that His directing hand was over all His 
works ; calling each, byname ; watering the hills, send- 
ing springs into the valleys, causing grass to grow for 
the cattle, and all things for the use of man. (Ps. 104.) 
That God was great indeed, yet He made the small 
drops of rain to distil from the vapors of the clouds, 
and to cause the earth to send forth the bud of the ten- 
der herb. That the sweet influences of Pleiades, the 
courses of the heavens, the guiding of Arcturus with 
his suns, as well as morning and evening, were all the 
ordering and appointments of God.* 

The old historian Damascius says : " The Babylonians 
speak not of One origin of all things, for they make 
two original beings, whom they call the mother of gods ; 
and that a third race proceeded from them, who had 
three children — Anos, Illinos, and Aos. The son of 
Aos and Dunke was called Belos (a longer form of Bel), 
who they say was the Demiurgus or fabricator of the 
world." In this we see a later hand and cosmic theory. 

* Job, chaps. 36-38. 



74 GOD IN CREATION. 

Again, the first creation tablet informs us that, 
" When the upper region was not yet called heaven, and 
the lower region was not yet called earth, and the abyss 
had not yet opened its arms, then the chaos of waters 
gave birth to all of them, and the waters were gathered 
into one place. No men yet dwelt together ; no ani- 
mals yet wandered about ; none of the gods had yet 
been born. Then the eldest of the created gods, Lakhma 
and Lakhamu, were born and grew up. Assur and Kis- 
sur were born next, and lived long periods." The man 
Asshur may be often mistaken for him. 

The fifth tablet of creation proceeds thus : " He 
constructed dwellings for the great gods. He fixed up 
constellations, whose figures were like animals— the 
chaos monsters transferred as guardians of the skies. 
He made the year. Into four quarters he divided it, 
twelve months he established, with their constellations, 
three by three. And for the days of the year he ap- 
pointed festivals. He made dwellings for the planets, 
for their rising and setting. And that nothing should 
go amiss, and the course of none should be retarded, 
he placed with them the dwellings of Bel and Hea. 
The repetition of this legend shows the previous ac- 
count not to have been a mistake of the copyist. To 
be sure of safety, he opened the gates on every side ; he 
made strong portals, on the left hand and on the right. 
In the centre he placed the luminaries. The moon he 
appointed to rule the night until the dawn of day. 
Every month without fail he made holy assembly days. 
In the beginning of the month, at the rising of the 
night (in the evening) it (the moon) shot forth its 
horns to illuminate the heavens." Just what we see 
at new moon. On the seventh day he appointed a holy 
day, and to cease from all business he commanded. 



GOD IN CREATION. 75 

Then arose the sun in the horizon of heaven in 
(glory). 

While some differences occur in the record, the bricks 
agree with Genesis, that the seventh day — Sabbath — im- 
mediately followed the completion of the cosmos and 
the creation of man. This twofold record of appointed 
days for worship is worthy of special notice. Omitted 
details there are, and repeated essentials of the order of 
creation, of the first sin, of the Sabbath, and of sundry 
commands, quite remarkable. 

But common alike in Egypt, in Chaldea, in Assyria, 
in Palestine, was the idea of a chaos of matter, created 
by Divine power. He spake, and the nebulous, in- 
candescent, shapeless mass of world-origins appeared. 
Such was the legimiing of creation. Then was a pause. 
How long a pause neither legend nor science can tell. 
Then successive steps or stages of development, or, if you 
prefer the word, of evolution from that chaotic mass, to 
a higher and yet more perfect cosmogony, gradually fol- 
lowed ; one, two, three long creative or adorning periods 
— then four, five, six other stages, as some divide them, 
till the whole solar system was completed and beauti- 
fied, when man himself, the crown and culmination of 
the whole, appeared on earth, and was blessed by his 
Maker. The ancient Hindus believed in " One Su- 
preme first Cause, the universal and eternal Essence, 
which has ever been and ever will continue to be ; who 
pervades and vivifies all things ; who is everywhere 
present, and causes the celestial bodies to revolve in the 
course He has prescribed/' Again, " There is One Su- 
preme Ruler of the Universe, One Supreme Spirit, dis- 
tant from us, yet near us ; who pervades this whole 
system of worlds, yet is infinitely beyond it."* At 

* See Max Miiiler' s ' ' India, " Lecture IV. ; Craufurd's •' India," 
vol. L, pp. 180-190. 



76 GOD IN CREATION. 

first He was regarded as existing in Unity, and by in- 
telligent Hindus was so worshipped. In later times this 
belief became modified into a sort of Trinity — Brahma, 
Vishnu, and Siva, or Agni, Indra, and Varuna, in 
order to be better apprehended ; later still, into a 
countless pantheon. But says Professor Monier Wil- 
liams, %i Hinduism," p. 11, " There is but one Being 
(for Brahmins)— no second." Very early the imagina- 
tion of the Hindus led them to personify nature. They 
called the Sun the Illuminator, the Warmer, the Nour- 
isher ; the Moon, the Measurer ; the Dawn, the Awak- 
ener ; the Thunder, the Eoarer ; the Fire, the Quick- 
Runner, etc. Such, in brief, are the legends of the Nile, 
the Euphrates, the Tigris, and of India, in substantial 
accord both as to the origin of matter and the Creative 
Principle, with the authorized narrative in our Bibles. 
Plato would prove from the sun, earth, and stars, and 
from the beautiful arrangement of the seasons, that 
there is a God. So also St. Paul. 

" All say that the world was created. 

The Deity is seen in His works." — Akistotle. 

" The Overseer, that dwells in highest heaven, 
He surely knows it, whether He Himself 
Was, or was not, the maker of the whole, 
Or shall we say, that even He knows not?" 

Some called him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, the 
beautiful-winged heavenly Garutmat, Yama, Mataris- 
van.* The Greek Aratus sang thus : 

" With Zeus we begin ; we live in Zeus : 
We are his offspring too ; friendly to man, 

* Max Miiller, " Sanskrit Literature," p. 563 ; " Chips from a 
German Workshop," vol. i., p. 29. 



GOD IN CREATION. \ 7 

He sets them their toil ; tells when the land 
Must be upturned by ploughshare or by spade — 
What time to plant the olive or the vine — 
What time to fling on earth the golden grain. 
Wherefore men worship Him — the First— the Last — 
Their Father— Wonderful— their Help and Shield."* 

I see no difficulty in accounting for the similarity of 
these traditions ; such was the ethnic affinity of Baby- 
lonians and Egyptians, of Hebrews and Assyrians. The 
sons of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan ; 
whose sons peopled the southern Euphrates, Egypt, 
Ethiopia, and a large part of Palestine. From the 
land of Shinar, in the Yale of the Euphrates, went forth 
Asshur, the son of Shem, and founded Nineveh and the 
early Assyrian Empire. Abraham was a descendant of 
Shem, the son of Noah, and his family settled in Ur of 

the Chaldees. Thence tliev went to Haran in Northern 

»> 

Syria, from whence Abraham migrated to Canaan, and 
found five of its princes paying tribute to Chedorlaomer, 
of the southern Euphrates, who was aided by certain 
allied chiefs of that region. 

Already there appears to have been some commercial 
intercourse between Western Asiatics, Babylonians, He- 
brews, and Egyptians. Abraham, as well as Jacob, went 
down into Egypt. Its people fought against their kins- 
men, Arabians and Cushites against Assyrians and He- 
brews. The plain country was the ancient battle-ground, 
and in later times Medes, Persians, and Greeks were 
successive combatants. From the days of Nimrod to 
Mahomet Western Asia was the arena of bloody con- 
flicts. A common family origin, commercial intercourse 
and traffic, even literary and scientific communion, did 

* Aratus, " Phenomena," vol. ii., lines, 1-15, by Prof. Rawlin- 
son ; compare Is. 28 : 23-29 ; Isaiah four centuries before Aratus. 



78 GOD IN CREATION. 

not prevent national hostility. But the fact of such 
early relationship explains agreement in ideas, tradi- 
tions, legends, and verbal expressions. The twelve 
hundred years from the Deluge to Abraham did not 
prevent his grandfathers from talking with the grand- 
sons of Shein. 

Those ancient legends, therefore, represent a common 
belief, originating from a common source, narrating 
the same accepted facts of world origins, and teaching 
the same ideas of creation and of providence. They 
were the heritage of a common ethnic relationship. The 
variations are neither great nor surprising. This ex- 
plains their extent and agreement. They were the 
original beliefs of the early races of mankind. Modern 
speculation cannot overturn the facts of universal his- 
tory. The revelations of the spade confirm the revela- 
tion of God. Chaldean bricks stultify modern guesses. 
Those inscribed records of the past in bricks, on cylin- 
ders, in bas-reliefs ; in Egypt, on the Tigris and the 
Euphrates, and the classic period of India confirm and 
illustrate Moses and the prophets. Nor can they be 
explained away without also eliminating and exscind- 
ing the common-sense and common history of almost 
universal mankind. 

No recent mutterings of half savage men, of Bongo 
and Wedda, of Samoan and Indian, can set aside those 
indisputable records — records which have recently come 
to light. They remove doubts where doubt existed ; 
they nullify unattested speculation ; they scatter mod- 
ern guesses. They present a history of creation, resting 
upon the pillars of monumental knowledge and the 
original belief of mankind. They teach a God as the 
Creator of all other beings and of all things and the 
appointed days for His worship. It w T as lie who first 



GOD IN CREATION. 79 

taught man his duty, and gave him His blessing, and 
watched over him by His Providence. Abel and Seth, 
Enoch and Noah, worshipped Him. Isaac in the field 
meditated upon Him. Jacob at Bethel, confident in 
Him, could sleep under the open sky with no fear of 
ghost or spectre. Not doubting Moses, we yet wish to 
know what Egypt and her contemporaries believed and 
taught, what Nimrod and Abraham said and did touch- 
ing God and His worship, and touching the men who 
were before them. If they tell us of One God, One only 
whom they believed in and adored, should we not extol 
Him as before and higher than heroes, and worship Him 
on His appointed days — Him as the Divine Architect, 
Instructor, and Lord ? Speculation can no more change 
His character than it can change gravitation or the 
courses of suns and seasons. Yet the mercury at 40° 
below zero may suggest different thoughts of Him than 
the warm zephyrs of a summer's day ; but He is the 
same Being in the summer and winter of the world and 
of souls — creating, vivifying, preserving, overruling. 
There is, there can be, but one true theology, however 
men of different ages may understand it. Man in- 
deed changes, but God remains the same forever. 



IV. 



LEGENDS ABOUT SATAN AND EVIL 

SPIRITS. 

Some question whether there is a devil among men 
now, whether his former domain has not been rescued 
from his power, and himself conquered and overthrown — 
in short, whether belief in him is not of the past. All 
the ancients who believed in a God also believed in a 
devil. All who believed in a Supreme Good Being, the 
Creator and Benefactor of mankind, also believed in a 
powerful Principle of Evil which corrupted, and in- 
jured, and destroyed. He was a being of vast talents 
and resources, a skilful strategist, of untiring activities, 
and sovereign in his realm of evil. He possessed very 
large attainments, and of his efficiency there was no 
doubt. To cope with him was to combat with a mas- 
ter, and the strongest would find him a mighty antag- 
onist. Hence the conflict between Bel and the Dragon, 
between St. Michael and Satan. The Benevolent Crea- 
tor, it was believed, had made the world, but a malevolent 
devil sought to possess, and dominate it. He caused the 
noxious vapors, the pestilence, everything injurious to 
mankind, death itself. 

1. According to Babylonian, Egyptian, and Hebrew 
traditions, an Evil Being existed long before the crea- 
tion of man. He was upright and loyal to the Great 
Supreme when originally created by Him. He joined 



GOD IN CREATION. 81 

in the worship of Heaven and in extolling the Divine 
Majesty ; but at length he rebelled against Him, and 
tried to usurp His throne and government. In that re- 
bellion he is said to have seduced and enticed a thou- 
sand other spirits to apostatize and unite with him. 
The legend relates that the hosts of Heaven were assem- 
bled and singing the praises of the Creator, when a re- 
volt suddenly occurred. The Divine Being thrice 
announced the commencement of a Psalm ! The god 
of holy songs, the great choirmaster of Heaven's wor- 
ship, seated a thousand singers and musicians, and 
established a choral band, who to his hymn were to re- 
spond in multitudes. But with a loud cry of contempt 
the rebels broke up his holy song. Such spoiling and 
confusion confounded the praises of those who contin- 
ued to sing. Then the God of the bright crown sum- 
moned His adherents as soon as the rejoicing ceased. 
And the rebels uttered curses and imprecations upon 
them and upon their Creator. But in His wrath He 
sounded a trumpet blast which would awaken the dead, 
and drove them from His presence. He sent the rebels 
to those gods who were His enemies. The ancient Hin- 
dus believed that angels had been hurled from their 
stations.* The sixteenth creation tablet goes on to say 
that in their stead He created man ; that the first who 
received life dwelt long with Him. It also contains a 
prayer that He would give them strength never to neg- 
lect His word, or (mark the expression) follow the ser- 
pent's voice ! And may the god of divine speech ex])el 
from his five thousand good spirits (the number of 
angels said to have been originally created) the one 

* See Craufurd's " India," vol. i., p. 197; "Records of the 
Past," vol. v., pp, 163-66. 
4* 



82 GOD IN CREATION. 

thousand wicked ones who in the midst of the heavenly 
song had shouted their evil blasphemies ! And the 
record narrates how the god Asshur, the tutelary deity 
of Assyria, had witnessed the malice of those who re- 
belled against their Divine allegiance, and refused to go 
forth with them, or to countenance their disaffection 
and apostasy.* Thenceforth their leader is represented 
asa u dragon," and was so named by the Babylonians. 
He was the offspring of Tiamat, who was produced by 
chaos ; with the Egyptians he was the offspring of 
Saturn, and named Typho. But all alike considered 
him to be the Evil One, essentially evil and an all- 
worker for evil, the panourgos, navovpyoS. His birth- 
day was inauspicious, and no one would transact any 
business upon it. It was a banned day in the calendar. 
2. But wicked as Typho was, he found a mate, and 
married his sister Nephthys, a being more to be feared 
than loved, who reigned in Hades. Typho was an 
early mischief-maker, who caused trouble among the 
celestials, by stirring up jealousy, anger, and strife. 
Whereupon Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis, engaged 
him in battle, and took him prisoner. Yet even then 
Isis had pity upon him and interposed by setting him 
free. Again the conflict was renewed, and Horus con- 
quered, but did not utterly destroy him. This strug- 
gle between the good and evil of the world, between the 
Good Principle and the Evil Principle, was to be long 
and terrible. It symbolized, as some thought, the 
operations of nature, the movement of the heavenly 
bodies, the changing seasons, summer and winter. But 
others, with much reason, reject all symbolism and typi- 
cal representation, and regard Typho as an early exist- 

* "Records of the Past," vol. vii. 5 pp. 127, 128. 



GOD IN CREATION. 83 

ent and independent Evil Principle, who became the 
author of wickedness on the earth, as he had been the 
author of rebellion in Heaven ; who afflicted our world 
with corruption, disease, and death, in malicious oppo- 
sition to the Good Being who was the Author and Be- 
stower of life and blessedness.* 

Of old time as now, men may have attributed to the 
devil more than was his due. If the sun shone too hot, 
if there w T as a drought or a destructive fire, they 
charged it against Typho. And if it was too cold or 
too wet, if the Red Sea or the Mediterranean became 
tempestuous and damaged their merchandise or their 
ships, they charged it against Typho. All that was bad 
in nature was attributed to him, while all that was good 
was credited to another. Yet Typho was not the sun 
nor his orbit ; he was not fire nor water ; he was not 
drought nor destruction ; he was not famine nor pesti- 
lence ; but all the evils proceeding from these were al- 
leged against him. He had a bad reputation. 

Moreover, he had a poor emblem. The common em- 
blem for Typho among the Egyptians was an ass, and 
a red one at that. Some mirth-makers used to play on 
trumpets to represent his braying and to turn him into 
ridicule. The old Copts long had a custom of assem- 
bling at a certain time, and with great ado and cere- 
monious mimicry— like our college boys burying a hated 
text-book — they paraded a poor brute of an ass about 
their towns, and then led him to a precipice, over which 
they threw him headlong, in order to destroy him ! 
He was regarded as an unclean animal, the hated alike 
of gods and men. Yet because of Typho's power, he 
was feared, and sacrifices of propitiation were offered 

* Sir G. Wilkinson's " Egypt ;" Kenrick, ii., p. 352. 



84 GOD IN CREATION. 

him. This arose in part from a latent thought or feel- 
ing among men that Typho might not be altogether 
bad, that good and evil cannot be wholly separated in 
this world, and hence there might be something of 
good even in the devil. But Ormazd* and Ahriman (the 
principle of good and of evil in the system of Zoroaster) 
were eternally opposed and oppugnant to each other. 
However, if bad seasons, bad luck, disasters, eclipses, 
and all evil portents were to be ascribed to Typho, was 
he not a being of such tremendous powers that he ought 
to be propitiated by prayer and sacrifice ? Thus it came 
to pass that in some parts of Egypt temples were erect- 
ed to him, but after the eighteenth to the twentieth 
dynasty his worship was often neglected, and in later 
times his figure was erased from the sculptures. 

Where he was not thus feared and adored, he was 
hated, and his emblem was abhorred. The red ass, the 
hippopotamus, the crocodile, the bear — all representa- 
tives of Typho — are not such winsome creatures as to 
evoke other feelings than dislike and aversion. Indeed, 
Egyptian aversion went so far as to include all red- 
haired persons, who became objects of dislike and con- 
tempt, simply because of their color-resemblance to 
Typho. They could, however, retreat to those towns 
where the god they symbolized was held in honor.* 

In the time of Plutarch, as he himself tells us, there 
was shown at Hermopolis a statue of Typho in the form 
of a hippopotamus with a hawk upon its back fighting 
with a serpent. It suggested how powerful, how vio- 
lent, how annoying he might be to mankind. And he 
is supposed to have had some relation to the god of sor- 
row and death, of death caused by violence. 

* Sir G. Wilkinson : Kenrick. 



GOB iy CREATION. 85 

There is a notable difference between Egyptian ideas 
of the devil and those of many moderns : they thought 
Typho's influence and domination ended upon earth, 
where, though he might vex mankind ever so much, his 
activity ceased, and another god was believed to have 
the charge of Hades and hell. Typho could not enter 
there ! Yet there Christians regard Satan as supremely 
sovereign, the despot and the tyrant of the condemned. 

3. As to Chaldean legends and traditions of the Evil 
One, modern discoveries show that they are numerous 
and explicit. The bricks and cylinders of Babylonia 
abound with inscriptions and representations of him. 
They show him as a rebel in Heaven, plotting evil, with- 
holding the worship due to the Supreme God ; again as 
one of the monsters born of chaos, the offspring of 
Tiamat, the opposer of oosmical adornment ; he is por- 
trayed as a" dragon," and so named ; he is the pow- 
erful antagonist of Bel. 

Assyrian tablets give a description of the period be- 
fore creation, when only chaos existed and huge mon- 
sters w r ere generated in it. They tell us of the forma- 
tion of the world and the fall of man, and the fall of 
the celestial being who corresponds both to Satan and 
to Typho. And they describe the ^wickedness of the 
Serpent and the Dragon' s rebellion against the Supreme 
God. The aspiring angel is represented as riding in a 
chariot through celestial space, surrounded by the 
storms, with the lightnings playing about him, and him- 
self hurling the thunderbolts. A Cutha tablet speaks 
of him as lord of the lower regions and lord of earth, 
buc agreeing with the Egyptian idea, not as lord of 
Hades. Ninkigal or Allat reigned there. 

Chaldeans believed the Evil One, or the Dragon, to be 
the author of sin in man and of evil to him. He was 



8G GOD IN CREATION. 

the great producer of mischief ; the spirit of disorder as 
opposed to the creative God who had made all things 
delightful. As the cause of disobedience and apostasy 
iu Heaven and on earth, the Dragon was included in the 
curse of man's fall. The struggle for his expulsion 
from Heaven is very strikingly portrayed. One almost 
wishes that Milton could have read the graphic descrip- 
tion. Not to Genesis but to the Apocalypse must we 
turn for a similar account. It was a determined con- 
flict between the four legions of Heaven under Bel and 
the thousand rebel angels under the Dragon. He fought 
against the gods. By a mere change of names the 
records upon the burned bricks which were inscribed in 
Babylonia some two thousand years before the Christian 
Scriptures were written, and had been buried out of 
sight five hundred years previously, agree with those 
Scriptures in what they relate of the celestial war led by 
Michael against the Dragon. Thus we read : " Spirits 
were in rebellion on the same day in the lower part of 
Heaven, causing evil work, devising with wicked heads 
— seven of them represented by seven wild and ferocious 
animals. The flying clouds of Heaven surrounded 
them, the downpour of the skies, a violent wind, an evil 
wind, and the tempest began. From the surface of 
Heaven like lightning they darted ; descending to the 
abyss of waters they came down. In the wide heavens 
of the god Anu evil they set up, and an opponent they 
had not. But Bel heard of the matter, and it sank into 
his heart. He prepared for the conflict flaming swords, 
brandishing lightnings, curved cimeters, and a sword 
which turned four ways. With a strong sabre, with the 
bolt of his father Anu, a whirling thunderbolt, a bolt 
with double flames, like forked lightnings, impossible to 
extinguish, a quadruple bolt, a septuple bolt, and a bolt 



GOD IN CREATION. 87 

of worked fire, Bel shot at the Dragon, and raised his 
great sword, against him. Then the Dragon attacked 
the just Prince of the gods. Fiercely they joined in 
trial of battle ; the king drew his sword and dealt rapid 
blows ; then he seized his whirling thunderbolt, and 
looked well behind and before him, waiting for an op- 
portunity to deal a fatal blow. When the Dragon 
opened his mouth to swallow him, he hurled the bolt 
into it, before he could shut his lips. The blazing 
lightnings poured into his inside, and accomplished 
their work. Bel pulled out the heart, rent open the 
mouth ; he drew his falchion and cut open the body. 
Thus Bel took vengeance on the Dragon, and destroyed 
him. Over this victory he greatly rejoiced, for he scat- 
tered the allies abroad, and they retreated and dispersed. 
Their weapons he broke up ; in mountain heaps they 
lay about. The flaming thunderbolt had done its work ; 
the flaming sword did its work. It dealt rapid blows 
which none could escape, and it turned to the South, it 
turned to the North, it turned to the East, and it turned 
to the West. " It recalls the flaming sword of Genesis 
3:24, which allowed none to approach the tree of life, 
and none to return from banishment.* 



SPIRITS OF EVIL. 

4. It is quite noteworthy that after the victory of Bel 
and his destruction of the Dragon there yet remained 
active powers of evil on the earth. We find some Chal- 
dean legends that still regard an Evil Spirit as the cause 
and source of all that was bad in man. Thus Zoroaster 



* Compare chaps. 12 and 20 of the Apocalypse ; Chaldean Ac- 
count, pp. 102-112 ; " Kecords of the Past," vol. ix., pp. 137-39. 



88 GOD IN CREATION, 

and the Manichaeans taught of Ahriman and Demiar- 
gus, whom they made the representative of all evil, the 
Wicked Being who was eternally opposed to the Good 
Being. 

But in the celestial revolt the narrative from the 
bricks of Babylon makes a thousand created spirits to 
have apostatized, assigning to them seven leaders, of 
whom the Dragon was chief, and who under that name 
was killed by Bel. Examination of the different trans- 
lations shows that the meaning of the inscriptions on 
the tablets is much the same, one being rendered a lit- 
tle more intensively than the other. Thus one trans- 
lator has destructive tempests, and " meteors" for light- 
nings, and makes the rage of the combatants to ignite 
the thunderbolts. There is no doubt of the general 
correctness of the translation, nor of the genuineness 
of the records. They are as authentic as Caesar's ' ' Gallic 
Wars," Another tablet sets forth the peace and harmony 
which prevailed before the rebellion, like that repre- 
sented in the Book of Job, when the morning stars sang 
together, and all the sons or angels of God rejoiced. 
Jude also refers to a period before that of the fall from 
the first estate of purity and blessedness. Both in the Bi- 
ble and on Chaldean bricks there are many spirits of 
evil. Similarly in Egypt, Typho was not utterly de- 
stroyed. The Evil Principle still existed. Under the 
names of Tiainat, Dragon, Satan, Typho, Ahriman, 
Demiurgus, etc., it was believed in by all, and it was 
felt by all. It tempted by lying insinuations, that man 
would become as gods. By knowing evil, it was not to 
be supposed that he would be dominated by it as its 
slave. Babylonians invoked the powers of Heaven, in 
order to be delivered from earthly spells and evil 
spirits. Their legends tell us that the evil curse, like 



GOD IN CREATION. 89 

a demon, fixes on a man ; that a raging voice was fixed 
upon him. Indeed, it required more than human pow- 
ers to break the spell, and Bel Mirodach was sent to 
remove it. Like a torn flag should it be torn ; it 
should be burned in consuming flames. It should be 
expelled, and its victim restored to freedom. Such 
spells are frequently found described on the bricks, with 
suitable invocations for removing them. Spirits of 
Heaven were invoked against the spirits of earth. Bel 
Mirodach was the local god who opposed them, who 
cured the ills they caused, and sought to deliver men 
from their power and influence. He went about doing 
good. 

5. An old Accadian poem, not later than the time of 
Jacob, reads : " fire god, those seven how were they 
born, how grew they up ? Those seven in the moun- 
tain of the sunset were born ! Those seven in the 
mountain of the sunrise grew up ! In the hollows of 
the earth have they their dwelling. On the high places 
of the earth are they proclaimed. . . . Immense is 
their habitation. But no name in Heaven or on earth 
have they. Seven they are : in the mountain of the 
sunset do they rise. Seven they are : in the mountain of 
the sunset did they set. Into the hollow places of the 
earth do they penetrate. On the high places of the 
earth did they ascend. As for them, goods they have 
not ; in Heaven and earth they are not known by 
name," Another version continues the theme : 
" Those seven in the earth were born ; those seven in 
the earth grew up. Seven they are, seven are they. 
In the channel of the deep seven are they. In the 
radiance of Heaven seven are they. In the channel of 
the deep, in a palace grew they up. Male they are 
not, female they are not. In the winds of the deep are 



90 GOD IN CREATION. 

their paths. Wives they have not, sons they have not. 
Order and kindness know they not. Prayer and sup- 
plication hear they not. Baleful are they, baleful they. 
Seven are they, seven are they, seven twice over again 
are they/' 

Thus early was seven a perfect number among the 
Accadians, and inscribed upon the bricks some cen- 
turies before Moses legislated for the Hebrews. In the 
poem the order of sex is transposed ; but the Accadians 
mentioned the female before the male, either from re- 
spect or from their ideas of the order of creation. Thus 
they thought the moon was created before the sun. 
Singular, too, while they attributed the relation of sex 
to the gods, they withheld it from the spirits, good and 
bad. Sometimes they invoked both alike, thus : 

•* May the spirits of Heaven remember, 
May the spirits of earth remember."* 

Thus too the old Hindus : 

"OM, remember me, divine Spirit ! 
O M, remember my deeds." 

6. Moreover, those ancients believed that the world 
was swarming with noxious spirits. Besides the thou- 
sand fallen angels, they reckoned there were three hun- 
dred spirits of Heaven and six hundred spirits of earth. 
These nine hundred took interest in the affairs of man- 
kind, and were to be invoked on fitting occasions. 
But we must not confound them with the seven wicked 
spirits who heard neither prayer nor supplication. The 
wild chant about them touched the deepest religious 
feelings of old Babylonians, who seemed to cherish a 

*"Kecords of the Past," vol. ix., pp. 143-148; Craufurd' s 
"India," vol. i., p. 192. 



00 D IN CREATION. 91 

peculiar sympathy for them. Still they dreaded them ; 
for " they might cause that a man's corn should not be 
high, and that the sun should not be genial to him !" * 
As before said, they attributed all the ills which afflict 
humanity to evil spirits, and their records show what a 
deep lodgment this notion had found among them. 
It is there inscribed as emphatically as in the Book of 
Job, what destruction spirits of evil might exert upon 
man. They could destroy his property, his children, 
his health, leaving him nothing but ruins — a diseased 
body, a wrecked fortune, a forgotten name. Hence 
devil-worship. Hence prayer and invocation that the 
good spirits would interpose and deliver men from all 
evil spells, from ill fortune, and the secret machinations 
of the wicked. Then it was Bel against the Dragon, 
now it is Jesus Christ against Satan. 

Eegard these legends as we may, they have come 
down to us with other evidences of what was thought 
and believed four thousand years ago, and by others 
than Hebrews. Hamites, Semites, Aryans, so believed 
in active spirits of evil. Our Lord alone taught and fore- 
told their utter overthrow. In St. Luke (10 : 17-19) we 
read of the Seventy returning with joy, and saying to 
Him, " Even the demons are subject unto us through 
Thy name." And He said unto them, " I beheld 
Satan as lightning fall from Heaven. I give you au- 
thority over all the power of the enemy ; and nothing 
shall by any means hurt you." This is the triumph of 
Jesus Christ over wickedness and all spirits of evil. 
1 - And the devil that deceived shall be cast out, held 
and bound, tormented day and night, and his angels 
cast out with him." (Rev., chaps. 12 and 20.) It goes 

* " Records of the Past," vol. i., p. 135 ; vol. iii., pp. 143-48. 



92 GOD IN CREATION.] 

farther than any Eastern legends, declaring the utter 
downfall of the chief and his whole army. All who 
were expelled for rebellion from the abode of the celes- 
tials are forever prohibited from returning, unless we 
adopt the hope of Origen, that after long ages of pun- 
ishment even the devil and his angels may be restored 
to fellowship with the holy angels.* But even so, they 
are not restored as victors, but as penitents who con- 
fessed their sin, and submitted themselves to their 
Lord, To whom every knee shall bow, of those in 
Heaven, and those in earth, and those under the earth — 
i.e., those in Hades (Philip. 2 : 10). To compare such 
authenticated legends with modern notions of witch- 
craft among African, Indian, and Sea Island tribes, in 
order to illustrate the absurdity of the original belief, 
is illogical and unhistorical. The character of that be- 
lief does not affect its antiquity, and so ought not to 
affect its credibility. Clearly it did not arise in Egypt 
and Chaldea from any fears of departed heroes, bene- 
factors, or criminals. With freedom and accountability 
given them, all spiritual beings were as free to fall in 
Heaven as upon earth, in Egypt and India as in Baby- 
lon and Palestine. The inscriptions cannot le erased. 
They teach the fact of a Hades or infernal regions as 
explicitly as the Bible, and they name the goddess 
who presided there. The remarkable legend of Istar's 
descent thither may have prepared for the descent of 
Orpheus after his beloved Eurydice. It was the oppo- 
site of that place of delight to which Anat and Iau 
would transport the just, and for which good Babylo- 
nians prayed. * 

* Plumptre's "Spirits in Prison," p. 144; Bampton Lectures 
for 1886, pp. 230-234. 



CONCLUSION. 

Thus we have found "streams of tendency," yea, 
streams of history, which run back to one common 
source or origin, which fully explain man's belief of 
God in Creation and in Worship, and how he was in- 
cited or instructed so to believe and worship. Some 
Being has ever governed the world in righteousness and 
administered true judgment to His people. Applying 
the canon of Ewald and of common-sense, we find that 
the simple is first, the complex and multiform later, 
The testimony of mankind concerning this matter must 
be received. Noah and Nimrocl, Abraham and Mel- 
chisedec, Jethro and Moses, by their example and 
lessons, voice the facts of early times, and are corrobo- 
rated by the history of primitive nations. We admit an 
early tendency to corruption in religion. Man never 
was a perfect being ; at his best he was without experi- 
ence. Yet after travelling two thousand miles Abra- 
ham found those in Egypt and in Palestine whose rule 
of ethics was equal to his own. But his historic posi- 
tion and character are admitted by men who doubt 
other matters. The character and position of Mel- 
chisedec are also established, though we ignore for a 
time his theanthropic and Messianic relations. He was 
the priest-king of Salem, the capital of the Jebusites, 
until David took it and called it Jerusalem.* But in 
the time of the patriarch it was named Salem, its prince 

* Josh. 15 : 63 ; Judges 1 : 21 ; 2 Sam. 5 : 7, 8. 



94 GDI) IN CREATION. 

and chief was called " priest of El-Eliun," the just or 
righteous One among that people, and by St. Paul 
" King of Righteousness." It was an exalted title. 

If he had any dealings with the neighboring Phoeni- 
cians, he may have found others who worshipped the 
true God. They were not originally the cruel religion- 
ists they subsequently became. According to Professor 
Kawlinson, " the Phoenicians began with the monotheis- 
tic idea, whether that idea originated in their own 
hearts or was impressed upon them from without by 
revelation. Possibly their several names for Deity may 
have been only different epithets of the Most High, 
expressing His attributes of inscrutability and omnis- 
cience."* Even the feminine forms of those names 
among Semites "were intended only to express the 
energy or the collective powers of the Deity, not a sepa- 
rate being, least of all a wife." f Sadyk, or the last two 
syllables of Melchisedee's name, is said to designate the 
god who personified the Divine Justice. This may be 
another reason for concluding that the Jebusite was 
originally a worshipper of the Most High. Even at the 
time of the covenant with Abraham the supernal vision 
told him that the iniquity of the Amorite was not yet 
full (Gen. 15 : 16, 21). So we may infer that the 
priest-king was as really a worshipper of Jehovah as 
the patriarch, although the Jebusites latterly became 
idolaters (2 Sam. 5 : 6). We may indeed marvel that 
the Hebrews during their four hundred years in Egypt 
and that Jethro and Moses during the adverse surround- 
ings of their position still retained such a regard and 
attachment for the God of Abraham. While revelation 
can, the theory of evolution cannot explain it. 



* " Religions ADcient World/' pp. 102-3. 

f Max Miiller, " Science of Religion," p. 183. 



GOD IN CREATION. 95 

Finally, the monotheistic idea of Creation and of 
Worship found significant expression in the sacrifice of 
animals. Why else should you kill a creature of God 
in order to please or propitiate Him ? Why enjoin a 
certain time for sacrifice — every seventh day of the 
month — among Babylonians and Hebrews, Egyptians 
and Peruvians ? On the hills of Palestine and of Persia 
men prayed and sacrificed to God for long ages without 
priest or temple. Again and again they attempted to 
account for the evil of the world, and to atone for and 
extirpate it. Only by supernal agency could they have 
known of the fall of angels in Heaven ; yet we find 
similar explanation of fallen angels on the Euphrates 
and the Jordan, spirits of evil in Egypt and in Elam. 
M. Lenormant, who confessedly is learned in such 
legends, says : " The analogy between these myths and 
the Bible narrative is striking indeed. They are really 
one and the same tradition. The inspired author of 
Genesis took it up under the form that it had evidently 
retained among the Hebrews, and made it the occasion 
of a solemn lesson. A painted vase of Phoenician work- 
manship of the seventh or sixth century B.C., discovered 
by General di Cesnola, " represents a leafy tree, from the 
branches of which hang two large clusters of fruit ; a 
great serpent approaches the tree and rears itself to 
seize the fruit." * Spirits expelled from Heaven were 
believed to possess the earth before the creation of man, 
whom they early sought to seduce from the path of duty 
to rebellion against their Maker. Their number matters 
not, but there was a legion of them, with a chief. A 
place was prepared for them and for wicked and dis- 
obedient men. For the good and obedient there was a 

* Contemporary Review for September, 1879. 



96 GOD IN CREATION. 

place of blessedness, a fitting counterpart of Gehenna ; 
believed in substantially by all ancient peoples : Baby- 
lonians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Persians, Aryan Indians 
and Greeks. Man's Creator became his teacher, his 
punisher for doing wrong, and his rewarder for doing 
right. The good, the heroic, the benefactor secured 
the eternal enjoyment of Heaven, where night never 
came and friends never failed. " Like a bird (they 
prayed) may the soul fly to a lofty place ! To the holy 
hands of God may it ascend. May his soul shine radi- 
ant. Lord of light, the man who serves his God, Thou 
wilt grant him an abode of happiness. " * 

44 Where King Vaivaswata reigns, where the secret place of heaven 

is, 
Where the mighty waters are, there make me immortal. 

44 Where life is free, in the third heaven of heavens, 
Where the worlds are radiant, there make me immortal. 



" Where wishes and desires are, where the place of the bright sun 

is, 
Where there is freedom and delight, there make me immortal. ' 



' ' Where there is eternal light, in the place where Varuna dwells, 
Where the desires of our heart are attained, there make me im- 
mortal." f 

* " Records of the Past," vol. iii., pp. 134 and 138. 
f G. Smith's "Chaldean Account;" "Records of the Past," 
vol. i., pp. 143-49 ; vol. ix., pp. 161-62 ; •« Chips," vol. i„ p. 46. 



V. 

DELUGE LEGENDS. 

CONTENTS : Deluge Legends. — The Cause and the Catastrophe. 
— Threefold Testimony or Hamites, Shemites, and Japhites : 
Geeeks, Hindus, Geemans, and Scandinavians : Opinions of 
M. Lenoemant and Others : Tacitus and the Geeman Tribes 
vs. Herbert Spencer : Testimony of Lactantius : Gibbon vs. 
St. Tertullian : Small Significance of Roman Deification. — 
Proposal of Tiberius to Enroll Christus among the Gods. 
— His Deification the Logic of History. 

A world of words has been written touching the 
truth of Noah's Deluge. But all speculation and 
science must yield to established facts of history. In- 
deed, science is not science when oppugnant to facts. 
The first consideration about the Deluge is, upon what 
grounds do we believe the record and the catastrophe ? 
None of us remember the occurrence, while all of us 
may read the account of it. Is that account credible ? 
Is it the creation of the imagination of ancient poets ? 
As an early historic record it is credible, though differ- 
ent from ordinary occurrences. It is a marvel of 
marvels that its essential details could have been re- 
counted and recorded as we find them, if the original 
event was only a poetic fantasy or a huge thunder- 
storm ! A real deluge, however destructive, is scientifi- 
cally credible. All history is possible ; true history is 
credible. There can be no antecedent improbability in 
such a case. Just as there was no antecedent improb- 
ability against our late war, terrible and unfraternal as 
it proved, so, I ask, were not the Noachian Deluge and 
the War for the Union of our American States equally 
5 



98 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

probable from antecedent considerations ? Surely God 
could as easily drown men into right living as Americans 
could fight their brethren into friendship ! 

Let us put it after the style of an old myth : Ages 
ago there were thirteen brothers, who lived in unity 
and amity for a long time. They prospered, and per- 
formed exploits. A distant but strong nation tried to 
oppress and enslave them. The brothers resisted, and 
fought against all who were sent to subdue them, and 
after long wars they triumphed. Again they lived in 
peace and prosperity, and did wondrously for genera- 
tions. They grew to be thirty-three strong brothers, 
with sisters, wives, and children ; were admired or 
feared by all other peoples for their prowess. But, lo ! 
a third part of these brothers said, We will not regard the 
wishes of our other brothers. We will resume our per- 
sonal rights, and the property acquired by all for joint 
use shall be divided among us. There shall be two 
nations. We will set up for ourselves, and do as we 
please. But, then, the other two parts said, No ; you 
shall continue to be one nation with us, and do as we 
do, and share in what we have. Yet to this they would 
not agree, but made war, and fought the two parts hard 
and long, and were finally overcome. 

This brief putting of our national history is not far 
from the truth, but it reveals an antecedent improb- 
ability that it could be true. The experience of the 
original thirteen should have led the thirty-three to 
consider, to recollect themselves, and comply with 
reasonable conditions of union. At least the eleven 
should not have been so self-determined and defiant, 
where so many others were equally concerned. 

Precisely so was it with the antediluvians. They 
were self-willed, reckless, and would not consider their 



DELUGE LEGENDS. 99 

duty to God, and do as He required. So He fought 
against them with the elements of nature, and drowned 
them with a flood of waters. But He also forewarned 
them of what He would do. For a long while Noah 
preached repentance and reformation to them. This 
illustrates the a priori probability to be as likely in one 
case as in the other. It is just as reasonable that there 
should have been a drowned world of mankind because 
of their wickedness, as that there should be a civil war 
in America for preservation of the Union. 

Now, the Deluge is represented in the Bible and other 
ancient Records to have been as a punishment for the sin 
of man. That was its cause — the chastisement of the sin- 
ners. In Chapter IV. of this little book the origin of sin 
is ascribed to the self-will and rebellion of spirits in 
heaven. They sinned, were expelled, and then came to 
earth to induce men to sin. But whatever the origin 
of evil, men have felt its power within them, and have 
seen its effects outside of them. Many have been 
appalled at the spectacle. St. Paul puts it excellently 
in Eomans 6 and 7. 

Personal misfortune, broken faith, domestic calamity, 
suicide, the battle-fields of the world, are but the out- 
come of sin in man and of evil in the nations. Attempt 
to explain it as we may, we are obliged to acknowledge 
its existence, its destructive forces, and its oppugnancy 
to mankind. Amid all the good in man since time 
began, he has ever been subject to evil, and at times 
has been dominated by it. Often and again an Abel 
has found his Cain. If a goddess has presided over 
human birth, a goddess*- H»"also cut the thread of 
human life. Clotho has ever been followed by a 
Nemesis ! To be born was sure warrant of death. To 
be capable of large enjoyment was also to be liable to 



100 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

sorrow and suffering ; and the larger one's capacity the 
larger might be one's joy or grief, perhaps each in alter- 
nation. Now, whence this twinship of goud and evil ? 
From God ? Yes, in the sense of His permitting it ; 
no, in the sense of His causing it. So wise men have 
long believed. The Bible and the Inscriptions so teach. 
Already we have considered how the Evil Being became 
evil ; how he rebelled against Heaven, and then plotted 
against man. Failing in his wicked attempt to usurp 
Jehovah's throne, he would corrupt and dominate the 
earth, and curse the man whom God had blessed. Thus 
he caused man to sin, and for persisting in wrong-doing 
God destroyed the sinner. 

This was a fact of such vast importance in human 
history that records and intimations of it are well-nigh 
universal. Consider : the sons of Noah were Shem, 
Ham, and Japheth ; the sons of Ham were Oush, 
Mizraim, Phut, Canaan, who became Accadians, early 
Babylonians, Egyptians, Palestinians, etc. The sons 
of Shem were Asshur, Elam, Arphaxad, Lud, and 
Aram, whose families became Assyrians, Elamites, 
Hebrews, Lydians, Phoenicians, etc. From Japheth 
descended the Medes and Hindus, Iranians and settlers 
in Western Asia Minor, the islands of the Archipelago 
and the Mediterranean, with its western coasts, as well 
as Greece, Italy, and even as far as Britain ; while 
Gauls, Germans, and Scandinavians came from across 
the continent. That early confederation mentioned in 
Genesis 14 may have included representatives of all 
Noah's sons. Chedorlaomer was a Semitic Elamite, 
Ariocli of Ellasar was ;\Jff*mm*m*, Amraphel a Hamite 
of Shinar, and Tidal the Aryan king of nations. For 
twelve years this confederation held the Southern Pales- 
tinians tributary. Whether it also represented the four 




DELUGE LEGENDS. 101 

tongues or nations ascribed to the Babylonian peoples 
in cuneiform inscriptions we do not know, but the con- 
federacy shows how naturally its different members 
might have much in common of tribal affection, tribal 
usages, and tribal knowledge. Easily might their 
grandfathers have conversed with the grandsons of 
!Noah. Hence even at that early date (two thousand 
years B.C.) there may have been authentic legends of 
the Deluge current among the nations. Chaldean and 
Iranian history proves this. Divested of rhetorical and 
poetic fancies, the underlying facts of the record cannot 
be doubted. They illustrate the truth of God's ever- 
lasting word. They corroborate the essential features 
of the narrative in Genesis. 

The three chief elements of Noah's Deluge are Divine 
Agency, forewarning of the catastrophe, and the after- 
sacrifice by the survivors. These we find in history, 
sacred and secular. First in time and in detail we 
have the legend of early Babylonia, or the Hamitic ver- 
sion, which nearly agrees with the Hebrew, which was 
later, unless derived from Abraham, and so contempo- 
raneous. It contains mention of the Divine Agent, the 
warning, and the after sacrifice. Thus : I will destroy 
the sinner (Lenormant reads substance) and life, said 
the God Ea to the son of Ubaratutu. Make thee a 
vessel after this fashion, and cause to enter all the seed 
of life, that thou mayest preserve them. Six hundred 
cubits shall be the length of it, and sixty cubits the 
breadth, and sixty the height thereof.. Sirippakite 
answered, My Lord, that which Thou commandest, I 
will perform ; though old and young deride me, it shall 
be done. Ea spake and said, If any laugh, punished 
they shall be. The protection of God is over thee. At 
the given moment close the door. I will judge the high 
and the low. Then when the ship was builded and 
made ready, the family of the favored man, with all 



102 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

that appertained to them, entered ; also birds of every 
kind, animals, tamed and untamed, men and women 
servants, and the sons of Khasisatra' s people, the cat- 
tle and the wild beasts of the field, with grain, pro- 
visions, furniture, treasures ; these were kept within 
the door of the ship. It was closed to all others. Then 
it rained abundantly from heaven ; the sky god thun- 
dered in the midst of the clouds ; Nabon and Sharru 
marched before, devastating the mountain and the 
plain. Nergal, the powerful god of war and death, 
dragged chastisements after him. Adar advanced, 
overthrowing all before him ; the Archangels wrought 
destruction. Terribly they agitated the earth. The 
flood rose up to the sky, and the earth was changed to 
a desert of waters. The living creatures were destroyed. 
Brother no longer saw his brother ; men no longer knew 
each other. The gods in terror sought refuge in the 
heaven of Anu. Istar wailed like a child : Humanity 
is returned into mud ! Like fishes they are filling the 
sea ! So it was declared in the presence of the gods. 
On their seats they were seated in tears. Weep with 
Istar ! For six days and as many nights the wind, the 
water- spout, and the diluvian rain raged in all their 
force. On the seventh day it grew weaker, grew calm, 
and the sea began to dry. Khasisatra looked out, and 
saw the whole of humanity had returned to mud ; like 
sea-weeds the corpses floated. He opened the window, 
and the light smote on his face. He was seized with 
sadness ; he sat down and wept ; the tears rolled down 
his face. The vessel was borne to the land of Nizir ; it 
floated above the mountain of Nizir for six days, and 
on the seventh day it rested. Khasisatra sent forth a 
dove ; it went about and returned. He then sent forth 
a swallow ; it went about, but found no place to light 
on, and returned. Last, he sent out a raven ; the raven 
saw the corpses on the water ; it ate, rested, and came 
not back. Khasisatra offered sacrifice ... a burnt- 
offering on the peak of the mountain. By sevens he 
disposed the measured vases, which Lenormant says re- 
lates to ritualistic details of sacrifice. And the gods 
assembled above the master of the sacrifice. Anu and 



DELUGE LEGENDS. 103 

the great goddess approached. The gods prayed that I 
might never leave them ; I, Khasisatra, prayed that I 
might never leave them. Let the gods come to my sac- 
rificial pile. But never may Bel come, for he made the 
Deluge, and numbered men for the pit (of destruction). 
He sought that no one should leave the vessel alive. 
Then is related the parley between Ea, Adar, and Bel : 
11 Let the sinner carry the weight of his sins, the blas- 
phemer the weight of his blasphemy ; but never again 
shall the Deluge come. [I condense the legend.] In- 
stead thereof let lions, let hyenas, let famine, let pesti- 
lence, severally reduce, destroy, and devastate mankind. 
So Khasisatra interpreted and understood what the gods 
had determined. Then, when his destructive resolve 
was arrested, Bel entered the vessel. He took my hand 
and made me to rise ; he made my wife rise and stand 
by my side. He turned around us and stopped short, 
saying : Until now, Khasisatra has made a part of per- 
ishable humanity ; but, lo ! Khasisatra and his wife are 
going to be carried away to live like the gods ! And 
they were taken to a remote place at the mouth of the 
rivers.' ' Observe this early addition of the polytheistic 
narrator. Noah is not deified exactly, but taken away 
without dying to live with the gods. The translation 
of Enoch is here ascribed to Noah. The date of the 
legend is some centuries after the Flood, which may eas- 
ily account for such additions. Then the swallow is not 
in our Genesis ; the time of the flood is very much les- 
sened ; one full week for the downpour of the water- 
spout, and one full week for the drying up of the 
waters ; whereas in Genesis the time of each is one hun- 
dred and fifty days ; the waters rose fifteen cubits high 
toward heaven, to insure complete destruction, and they 
were one hundred and fifty days in subsiding, quite a 
reasonable allowance of time. Forty days longer Noah 
remained in the Ark before sending forth a raven ; then 
he sent out the dove which returned ; and after seven 
days he again sent forth the dove which returned with 



104 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

an olive leaf. After another seven days he sent out the 
dove which did not return, for the waters were abated 
from off the earth. Some days more may have passed 
between the raven and the first dove and between the 
non-returning dove and the going forth from the Ark ; 
in all, according to Ewald and Lenormant, a solar year 
of three hundred and sixty-five days. See Genesis 7 : 
6 ; 8 : 13-21. As elsewhere remarked, the Chaldean 
account gives a polytheistic coloring, a plurality of gods, 
and even a difference in their names. Thus this legend 
at the outset makes the God Ea the Agent, but at its 
close he is named Bel ; again illustrating what I be- 
lieve to be true — viz., that the same name was applied to 
different ideas of God, and also different names were 
applied to the same Deity. The writers were polynom- 
ynous as well as polytheistic in their designations of 
Deity. But this legend belongs to the era of Abraham. 
The worship and the sacrifice are explicit elements of 
it. It was upon leaving the Ark, centuries before an 
acknowledged hero or the appearance of any ghost, be- 
fore a grave mound, and before a temple of saved man- 
kind. The historic fact is in direct opposition to the 
theory of the evolution of religion. But those who make 
the theory cannot set aside the legend of the Deluge in 
Chaldea or in Palestine, nor the early worship and sac- 
rifice of the saved man to the God who had saved him. 
Some differences in detail there may be, and under the 
circumstances there should be. Thus as to the dura- 
tion of the Flood and the dimensions of the Ark : in 
Genesis the length was to be three hundred cubits, the 
breadth fifty cubits, and the height thirty cubits, while 
in Chaldea the length was six hundred cubits, the 
breadth and height sixty cubits respectively. The 
greater size of the vessel and the shorter time for the 



DELUGE LEGENDS. 105 

catastrophe heightened in imagination the marvel of 
both. But inspiration guided the hand of the writer 
to give a true version of each particular named Truly 
may we exclaim, God's Word is from everlasting ! 
Such is the Accadian, Chaldean, or Hamitic narrative 
as compared with the Semitic account in our Bibles. 

Let us now glance at the Japhite or Aryan legends of 
the same event. Here the name of the saved chief is 
called Deucalion, who, because of his virtue and piety, 
was alone saved to become the father of a new race. The 
method is briefly described, and that Zeus inspired 
those admitted into the great coffer to amity and kind- 
ness, so that they did not devour one another while shut 
up in the float as long as the waters remained in force. 
The destroyed race are said to have been full of inso- 
lence and pride (compare Milton's description), commit- 
ting many crimes, disregarding oaths, inhospitable, de- 
void of mercy and pity. Wherefore they were terribly 
punished. Suddenly enormous volumes of water issued 
from the earth, rains fell in torrents, rivers overflowed 
their beds, and the sea its shores. The whole earth 
was covered with waters, and all men perished. Of 
course this is a repetition of the Chaldean and Hebrew 
account, though voiced in different words. Already we 
see the Divine Agent and the saved man. And we find 

the religious sacrifice : The people of Hierapolis tell of 
the marvellous opening of a great chasm in their coun- 
try, into which all the waters of the Deluge poured. 
Then Deucalion raised an altar and dedicated a temple 
to Hera near that chasm. Arabians and Syrians bring 
water even from the sea with which to celebrate re- 
ligious rites there. Thus was added a religious memo- 
rial of the event. The legend of the Koran says the 
waters of the Deluge were absorbed into the earth. 
Ewald states that " the Flood or washing period has a 
notice in the Vedas, as has been clearly shown by 
R. Roth and by Albert Weber in his ' Indian Studies.' " 

Burnouf, Wilson, Max Miiller, and Lenormant recount 
5* 



106 DELUGE LEGENDS, 

the Indian legends, which are common alike to Brah- 
mans and to Buddhists, but which may have been a 
Semitic importation within historic times and through 
Babylonian sources. Mtiller indeed laughs at the fish 
part of the legend, in seeming ignorance of Assyrian and 
Babylonian traditions, and that one of their gods was of 
ichthyomorphic form, combining part fish and part man. 
Some at first thought this representation was in memory 
of the Prophet Jonah and of his visit to Nineveh. There 
may have been truth in both ideas : the Fish-god had 
saved mankind. Heaven would again save all who 
obeyed the Divine will from flood and flame, from pesti- 
lence and famine, whether on the Indus, the Tigris, or 
the Euphrates. The Hindus had such commercial 
relations and intercourse with their Western neighbors 
as might induce them to adopt and then to embellish 
their Flood legends. 

Thus they tell how a fish spoke to Manu and asked 
for his protection, and then in turn this fish would save 
Manu from a coming Deluge, which would sweep all 
living creatures away to death. Keep me, said the fish, 
first in a vase, and when I become too large for it put 
me in a basin or pool, and when I have still larger grown 
throw me into the sea ; so shall I be preserved from be- 
ing eaten by other fishes. Soon it grew to be a fish of 
large size. Then it said to Manu, This very year, now 
that I have attained my full growth, the Deluge will 
happen. Build thee a vessel and worship me. When 
the waters rise enter the vessel and 1 will save thee. So 
it came to pass. The fish grew, Manu carried it to the 
sea ; he also built a vessel and worshipped the fish. The 
Deluge came, and he entered the vessel. Then the fish 
came swimming up to him, and Manu fastened his cable 
to the horn of the fish ; so he was guided safely over 



DELUGE LEGENDS. 107 

the mountains, and when the waters subsided the vessel 
was fastened to a tree. But the delude had destroyed 
all other (land) creatures, and Manu alone remained. 
Here we have the Fish-god, the warning, the worship, 
and the saved man. Such is Aryan India. Max Miil- 
ler and some others fail to see the essential elements of 
the original legend in this version. Well, there is no 
accounting for the caprices of learned men. How shall 
we account for this : The Iranians, in their Zoroastrian 
books, tell us how Ahuramazda, the good deity, warned 
mankind that the earth was about to be devastated by 
a flood. Yima built a high wall-fence around a large 
garden, and thus became the saviour of all who sought 
refuge within his provided inclosure. A bird carried 
the saving message to him and them. The usual item 
about sacrifice and worship is omitted here, but it is 
implied in the Divine message and the obedient man. 
Another Aryan legend, in addition to that of Deucalion, 
was connected with the name of Ogyges in Boeotia or 
Attica. The name itself is said to mean deluge in Aryan 
speech, and that in the days of Ogyges the whole land 
was covered by a flood, whose waters reached to the sky. 
Ogyges and some of his companions were saved in a ves- 
sel. Be this as it may, the memory of Deucalion's 
Deluge was long preserved in Greece by religious rites 
similar to those celebrated at Hierapolis in Syria. Near 
by the temple of the Olympian Zeus a fissure was shown 
of about a cubit in length (!) through which the Deluge 
waters were said to have escaped. 

Still another flood is reported to have occurred in the 
time of Dardanos in Arcadia, which some place before 
that of Deucalion by two hundred and fifty to six hun- 
dred years. The Samothracians hold that their Deluge 
was the earliest. But these variations of detail do not 



108 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

affect our main question — viz., the historic fact, Divine 
agency in it, sin the cause, and worship of God by the 
saved man immediately following it. Pagan priests in 
Phrygia had certain coins made, which represented an 
open ark, in which Noah and his wife are seen in the 
act of receiving the dove returning with an olive branch 
in its mouth ; while on the Ark was inscribed the name 
Noe, the same form of the word given in the Septuagint. 
Even the bards of Wales sung of this catastrophe, or 
rather of three such which were said to have occurred in 
Britain, and which destroyed mankind, except Dwyfan 
and Dwyfach, who saved themselves in a vessel and re- 
peopled the island. " We cannot doubt/' says Pictet, 
" that the Cymri had native traditions of the Deluge.' ' 
Some indeed trace this legend to the Scandinavians, 
who make the blood of the slain Ymir to drown all the 
giants but one, Bergelmir, who saved his wife and him- 
self in a boat, and thereafter became the parents of a 
new race of mankind. Such variations do not disprove 
the original, but enable us, as Pictet suggests, to trace 
them up to a common source. 

Max Mliller, in " What Can India Teach Us?" says 
there are " a million and a half of Lithuanians in Europe 
who speak a language containing grammatical forms al- 
most identical with Sanskrit." They were among the 
last of Europeans who became Christians, and so did 
not adopt their traditions. Yet according to Lenor- 
mant, these Lithuanians have a legend of the Deluge, the 
groundwork of which appears very ancient. Whether 
borrowed originally from Genesis or from Iranians, it 
has assumed a very pagan and popular character, mak- 
ing the God Pramzimrasto send two giants to lay waste 
the whole earth, because it was full of iniquity ! Only 
a few men escaped, by flying to a mountain, from the 



DELUGE LEGENDS. 109 

fury of these giants. Pramzimras, while eating celestial 
walnuts, dropped a shell near the mountain ; in this 
shell the fugitives found refuge and were saved. After- 
ward the god sent his rainbow to console them in their 
childless condition, and bade them jump " on the bones 
of the earth.' ' They jumped nine times, and nine 
pairs of children sprang forth ; these became the an- 
cestors of the nine Lithuanian tribes. The legend curi- 
ously reminds us of the oracle of Deucalion. It only 
wants the item of sacrifice to identify it with the legend 
of Chaldea ; and it has the rainbow of Noah. Thus we 
find the widely separated descendants of Shem, Ham, 
and Japheth testifying explicitly in confirmation of 
the fact and essential details of the Noachian Deluge. 
We may now add the testimony of Egypt as cumula- 
tive evidence on the Hamitic part of the question, lest 
the testimony of ancient Accadians and Erechians 
should not be enough from this ethnic stock. It is re- 
corded in a chapter of the sacred books of Thoth and 
graven on the sides of the innermost funeral chamber 
of Seti I. at Thebes. It belongs to a period nearly two 
centuries before the Exodus, and so could not have re- 
ceived any Noachian coloring from Moses. Translated 
by M. Naville, in " Records of the Past," it reads thus 
(condensed) : Said Ea to Nun, Those born of myself 
speak words against me ; lo ! I have waited, and have 
not slain before hearing your report. What would you 
do in the matter ? Lo ! they take to flight through the 
country, and their hearts are afraid. Said by the gods : 
Let thy face permit, and let those men be slain, thy 
enemies, who plot evil things, let none of them remain. 
The goddess of destruction left the company, and slew 
men upon earth. She returned when her heart was sat- 
isfied, and was welcomed back by Ka, who said He would 



110 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

complete their ruin. And lo ! Sekhet during several 
nights trod their blood under foot. When the anger of 
Ea was appeased, the massacre ended, and a great ex- 
piatory sacrifice conciliated Him. The juice of Egyptian 
fruits filling seven thousand pitchers and mingled with 
human blood was presented to the God. He was pleased 
with the offering. Said Ra, This is well ; I will protect 
men because of it, I raise my hand concerning this, to 
say that I will no more destroy men. He commanded to 
overthrow the liquid in the vases, and the fields were 
wholly filled thereby. Upon her arrival the goddess 
found the fields full of water. She rejoiced, drank abun- 
dantly, and went away satisfied. She no more perceived 
any men. Ra bade her a gracious welcome, and caused 
young priestesses to be born. Libations were instituted 
to Hathor under their direction by all men since those 
ancient times. Thus arose the practice. Some men 
escaped the destruction commanded by Ra, and pre- 
served the population of the world. Here Ra, Hathor, 
and Sekhet represent the destructive forces, or the Di- 
vine punishment of sin, while other parts of the legend 
may suggest a Chaldean origin. After the destruction 
there was offered an expiatory sacrifice, a solemn cove- 
nant made between men and the deity, who promised 
with hand upraised not again to destroy them. Lenor- 
mant suggests the correspondence of Ra in Egypt with 
Bel in Chaldea, and that the form of the tradition was 
changed as to the water part, the overflowing Nile being 
a source of blessing to the Egyptians, to the slaughter 
of men by the gods. The legend is complete in its main 
features. It agrees with that of Uruk, the Erech of 
Genesis, which, like Accad, was founded by Nimrod, a 
grandson of Ham. The Hebrew and Assyrian account 
is Semitic, while that of Iranians, Hindus, Greeks, 



DELUGE LEGENDS. Ill 

Britons, Phrygians, and Scandinavians— all cousins and 
descendants from Japheth — is derived from an eye- 
witness who was saved from the Deluge. More than this 
we do not need to establish any truth of history, an- 
cient or modern. As well claim the sun to be only a 
myth as that all the representative branches of the 
human family have erred in the grand fact of a cataclysm 
having occurred in the early ages of our world. It was 
written with pen and chisel upon the records of man- 
kind, and by the throes of nature in the bowels of the 
earth. Bat in the Inspired narrative there is no de- 
scription of death agonies ; no wailing of drowning men 
and women ; no sighs of despair ; no heartrending cry 
of wives and husbands, parents and children ; not a 
single shriek is heard at the approach of the rising 
waters : all this, despite its impressive effect on the 
reader, is ignored and left to the imagination for por- 
traiture. Neither Noah nor Moses plays the clown or 
the rhetorician. The record is grand in its simplicity 
— a simplicity which is guarantee of truthfulness. 

There is no need of interrogating the Chinese, the 
Sibylline oracles, our southern neighbors, the Mexicans 
and Peruvians, our native Indians, the Australians, 
Malagasy, Samoan or Bongo ; for if they all bore united 
testimony to a world-wide deluge, it would not be proof 
of the Deluge of Noah, since it remains to be proven 
through tvhom they trace their descent from Noah ! The 
Biblical account demands him and his sons as witnesses 
of that occurrence. If, therefore, we have their con- 
temporaneous testimony, who witnessed the event — and 
we have considered it in its threefold character, from 
Hamitic, Semitic, and Japhite sources — then not all the 
other history and science of this world can reasonably 
object to our conclusion, which is the verdict of triune 



112 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

humanity, that the hand of God and His voice of warn- 
ing did attend upon a deluged world of men, and that 
the saved man did worship God and sacrifice to Him 
immediately upon his deliverance. Such is the testi- 
mony of the Bible and of ancient legends. No later 
testimony or modern guesses can set it aside. 

TESTIMONY OF TACITUS. 

We may now pass over two thousand years, and turn- 
ing back to page 13.4, see what is there said of the Gauls 
and Britons by Caesar, in order the better to understand 
the remarks of Tacitus, who wrote about one hundred 
and fifty years later. Caesar (1. vi. cap. 21) says of the 
Germans that " they have no Druids who preside over 
the divine offices nor attend to the sacrifices. They 
regard those alone among the number of the Gods whom 
they can comprehend, and by whose operations they are 
evidently benefited : The Sun, Vulcan, or Fire, and the 
Moon. The rest (of our Pantheon) they accept only by 
report.' ' In other words, he represents the Germans as 
Sabaeans in a limited sense. Beyond the Khine the Gods 
were few in names, and may easily be reduced in number 
from the three mentioned by Caesar to One ; for the Sun 
and Vulcan, or Fire, are primarily one essence, one ele- 
ment ; while the Moon is precisely that for the night 
which the Sun is for the day — the great Benefactor and 
Illuminator. Hence the essential Unity of Deity was 
the belief of the ancient Germans. They had no Druids 
or priests, and no temples of worship, yet they had 
heroes and brave men who worshipped God. But in the 
evolutions of the next century, according to Tacitus, 
they had enlarged their pantheon and added to the 
number of their gods. He says in " De Moribus 
Germaniae," 7-9., that " in the reign of Vespasian, 



DELUGE LEGENDS. 113 

Veleda for a time enjoyed the position of a divinity ; 
but formerly Aurania and many others were honored, 
but not with worship, nor as if transformed into god- 
desses. Of the (Roman) gods they mostly worshipped 
Mercury, whom at certain times they thought it proper 
to propitiate with human victims. Hercules and Mars 
they appeased with ordinary sacrifices ; a part of the 
Suevi sacrificed to Isis." Here were a robust people on 
the borders of Eoman civilization, who in a single cen- 
t ury developed four new gods. They prove our posi- 
tion, that the first is simple, the complex of a later time. 
First they worshipped God, or what stood to them for 
God. But I am willing to suppose that Tacitus gave 
the Roman names of gods to those adored by the Ger- 
mans. Still the process of development is not in the 
line of Agnosticism, but the opposite. The Egyptian 
Isis was certainly not known to the Germans in those 
ages. For fifteen hundred years they had not crossed 
the path of the Egyptians. As to the difference between 
Caesar and Tacitus, it is their concern ; but if we render 
" ne fama" et al. by l€ only in name do they acknowl- 
edge the rest" (of our pantheon), it may lessen it or tend 
to reconcile these famous Romans. Tacitus may have 
given names to gods suggested by the " reliquios" of 
Caesar. But this does not explain chapter 7 of the 
Germaniae, that certain things were done only when per- 
mitted by the priests, " nisi sacerdotibus permissum," 
who were to the Germans what the Druids were to Gauls 
and Britons. Yet Caesar says they had no Druids — ie., 
no religious order. Again Tacitus says the Germans 
believed the gods were present when they were waging 
war, so they carried into battle certain pictures and 
standards, taken from the sanctuaries. These were an 
especial incentive to valor ; not emblems of the Deity 



114 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

in human form, nor in that of the lower animals ; but 
the pictures or heads of wild beasts, carried into battle 
in order to incite their ferocity ; heads of wild animals 
in pictures and on banners ; compare a 9 of the Ger. ; 
iv. 22 of the His. ; 1. c. 51 of the Ann. 

That the Germans had sacred places, woods and groves 
to which they gave the names of the deity whom they 
located there, but whom they beheld with the eye of 
adoration alone — a secret Power not enclosed within 
walls — is shown by the Ann. 1. c. 51, where we read that 
even the temple of Tanfana, the most celebrated in this 
nation, and other sacred places, were levelled with the 
ground. A consecrated grove, or any sacred place, was 
called templum by the Romans. And the priest of the 
canton led the invocation of the gods. In the Ger- 
mania, c. 9, Tacitus says : The gods are not supposed to 
be confined within the walls of a house, nor do they in 
any manner resemble the faces of men ; from their im- 
mensity they are believed to be in the heavens : they 
consecrated certain places and groves (lucos ac nemora) ; 
these solitudes, or sanctuaries, they called by divine 
names, and approached them with due reverence. In 
c. 10 he says the priests of the State (civitatis) besought 
the gods on public occasions, and interpreted the signs 
and appearances of the heavens. This certainly seems 
to be a different account from Caesar's. Could such an 
evolution of religious usages take place within a cen- 
tury ? If Tacitus attributed those names to the deity 
worshipped by the Germans, which correspond to those 
of the Romans, does he not also follow the same method 
when a sacerdotal functionary seems to be required? 
But this affects his veracity as a historian, and Tacitus 
stands high for historical correctness. In any case, his 
portraiture makes against ecclesiastical institutions. 



DELUGE LEGENDS. 115 

Caesar found no religious order among the Germans, 
Tacitus did, and made them priests of the cantons, in- 
spectors of the auspices which should decide on peace 
and war. Yet in all this not a sign of hero-worship is 
to be seen, except that heroes were their leaders in bat- 
tle, chosen for their valor {Daces ex vertute sumunt, c. 
7). They did not become gods ; neither was the power 
of their kings large or unrestrained. Deification was 
unknown among them. 

Nor will it be more favorable for modern theorists, if 
we look at the usages of Scandinavians and Norsemen. 
Whatever their ethnic origin, they did not begin with 
the worship of God under Eoman or Egyptian names. 
For many centuries they had no commercial or hostile 
dealings with them. Old Germans and Scandinavians 
held simple ideas of the Godhead, and they believed in 
a future life. The position of women among the Ger- 
mans was more like that of Mrs. J. S. Mill in the esti- 
mation of her husband, than that of the women of Rome 
in the days of Tacitus. Cousins they were ethnologi- 
cally, but in other respects Eomans and Germans largely 
differed. Professor Boyesen makes them of the same 
race origin as the Scandinavians and other Aryans. 
What the Germans originally believed and practised 
touching God and His worship, we learn from Csesar 
and Tacitus. Very similar was the theology of the old 
Northmen, as we may infer from their version of the 
Deluge. They indeed recognized the forces of nature, 
the hail-cloud and wind-cloud, and the thunderstorm. 
Winter's ice and summer's harvest came from God, to 
Whom he prayed, and Whom he worshipped, but kept 
his armor ready, and largely trusted to it and his own 
strong arm. Jotans or no, there was rough work for the 
Scandinavian to do in this world, and he did it. It 



116 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

was not in him to fear any ghost, or pray to departed 
spirits that they would not hurt him ! Rather, if any 
ghost stood in his way he would measure lances with 
him, and see who was the stronger. Carlyle in his 
" Hero-worship' ' well says that the genuine Thought of 
deep, rude, earnest minds was fairly opened in the 
Norseman to the things about him ; indeed, life with him 
was a face-to-face and heart-to-heart matter. He had 
true and rustic strength ; great sincerity discloses itself 
in him. Large gianthood characterizes the Norse sys- 
tem. It had untamed thought, but great compactness 
and godlike strength. Spiritually as well as bodily those 
men were our progenitors, from whom are the Shake- 
speares and the Goethes. Such heroes could not be in 
terror about the dead. There was no sincerity in spec- 
tres. With all its harshness, it would repay ecclesiastical 
evolutionists to master that first lecture of Carlyle's on 
the Hero as a Divinity. We all need more of the giant- 
hood of sincerity. Old Norsemen built no temples for 
the God they worshipped, nor to Loki, the devil they 
feared. But they saw God's power in Nature, and be- 
held with wonder and adoration. Professor A. Vambrery 
says the first Huns were the descendants of Nimrod — 
not Turanians — and they worshipped one Supreme Being 
called Isten ; but lesser deities came to be acknowledged 
who represented the powers of Nature ; for the Huns 
borrowed from the nations through which they passed 
many novel features of the religious life of those coun- 
tries ; from Parsees, Khazars, Ugrians. But this is not 
opposed to what is said of Nimrod and the Tartars in 
chapter 1 of this series, and the author had not then seen 
" The Story of the Huns." At first the Huns wor- 
shipped One Supreme Being — were not polytheists. 
Of the Etruscans our information is too scant to know 



DELUGE LEGENDS. 117 

what were their early ideas of God and His worship, but 
they were most probably of the Japhetic stock, and so 
had the religious ideas common to early Aryans. Eo- 
mans proper were another branch of the Aryan families. 
Lactantius, called the Christian Cicero, fancifully ac- 
counts for the adoption of false religion, " because that 
Ham, when disowned and exiled by his father, settled in 
Arabia ; his posterity were Canaanites, ignorant of God, 
because their prince and founder did not receive from 
his father the true worship of God, being, in fact, 
under the ban ; hence his descendants were ignorant of 
the Divine character (Inst., Book 2, c. 14 ; and in 
Book 1, c. 5). He cites the testimony of poets and 
philosophers ; that Orpheus, an ancient poet, speaks of 
the true and great God as the firstborn, from Whom all 
things sprung, and was the Parent of all gods ; that 
Marco, the first Latin poet, speaks of the highest God, 

" Mind and Spirit, Who nourished heaven and earth ; the main, 
The Moon's pale orb, and all the starry train ; 
A Spirit whose celestial flame 
Glows in each member of the frame, 
And stirs the mighty whole." 

Ovid also, he says, admits the universe was arranged 
by God, Whom he calls the Framer of the world, the 
Artificer of all things. Among Theists he reckons 
Thales and Pythagoras, Anaxoras and Clean thes, Chry- 
sippus and Zeno, Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Seneca. 
To this I may add the testimony of Xenophon : " It is 
believed that the gods have been worshipped by all men 
from the very beginning." Now, if this means any- 
thing as to belief in God and the practice of His wor- 
ship, it means that, four hundred years before our era, 
a truthful writer like Xenophon, touching matters 



118 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

within his knowledge, could make such a declaration. 
He and those whom he knew so believed and worshipped, 
and ^ all men had done this from the beginning," 
Neither Greeks nor Eomans worshipped ghosts. 

What, then, did deification among the Eomans mean ? 
It meant that some Eomans paid special honor to their 
Benefactors, great heroes, and deliverers from national 
peril, and it meant much more in the case of Eomulus 
and Caesar than when incense was offered to the statues 
of a Caligula or a Nero. But it had little meaning even 
then. What worship was ever paid to the elder Cato, 
to Numa, to Scipio? What could deification mean 
with Tiberius, even, who for more than twenty years 
held the imperial sceptre ? He was one of the most 
firmly seated of emperors, yet, according to Tertullian, he 
made a proposal to the Eoman Senate during the last 
seven years of his reign, which they refused to adopt. 
Yet it was one which the new theory of ecclesiastical 
development would naturally suggest. Tacitus indeed 
omits to record what was not done as a legislative act ; 
no secular historian records it. Why should he ? why 
make history of a proposal not adopted? He properly 
narrates the fact that Christ was put to death by Pon- 
tius Pilate, while Tiberius was emperor (Annals, xv. 44). 
Plato and Xenophon tell us that Socrates was unjustly 
put to death by vote of Athenians ; and in the Eepublic 
we read, " that the perfectly simple and noble man, 
clothed only in his justice, will suffer the worst conse- 
quences for being what in reality he is not — viz., unjust. 
He will be put in chains, scourged, tortured, and at 
last be impaled, crucified !" Plato himself had some 
experience of this at the court of Dionysius in Sicily. 
But neither he nor Socrates was ever deified by their 
countrymen. Why then should Jesus of Nazareth be 



DELUGE LEGENDS. 119 

deified? Well, the proposition of Tiberius, that He 
should be enrolled among the gods, which was said to 
be rejected by the Senate, rests upon the testimony of 
the famous Tertullian, repeated by Eusebius and others 
after him. Gibbon sneers at it as being too much to be 
believed, while others are puzzled and uncertain. 

Why not believe Tertullian? Though born in 
Africa, he received a liberal education, and was well 
versed in Greek and Koman literature, Roman law and 
history. He was clearly competent to record a fact or 
a gossip which belonged to the century before his birth. 
That he should create such a myth does not accord with 
his character as a purist in religion of the rigid school 
as to discipline. Madman in many respects as Tiberius 
had become, the proposal was not unsuited to his char- 
acter during the last seven years of his life. Witness 
how he tried to deceive even the court physician who 
felt his pulse ! So he may have thought this an easy 
way of appeasing the turbulent Jews, not distinguish- 
ing any more than Tacitus did the difference between 
the Christians of Palestine and the political fanatics 
who disturbed the peace of the country and menaced 
the empire. 

Moreover, Tertullian addressed his Apology to the 
Eomans, and bade them consult their histories and learn 
what pertained to Christianity for themselves. It is 
language which a falsifier of legends would hardly use. 
In the Apology, c. 5 and c. 21, he says : ' ' Tiberius, 
having received intelligence from Palestine of an event 
which had clearly shown the truth of Christ's divinity, 
brought the matter before the Senate, with his own de- 
cision in favor of Christ ; but because the proposal had 
not been formally voted upon in the usual way the Sen- 
ate rejected it." Again, c. 21, " Pilate sent word to 



120 DELUGE LEGENDS. 

the reigning emperor respecting the death of Christ, 
His resurrection/' etc. Again: " We worship God 
through Christ. He revealed the Deity.' ' Ensebius 
says : " Our Lord was believed to be a God by the great 
mass of the people. Tiberius referred the matter to the 
Senate, for the law required that no one should be 
ranked as a God unless by a vote and decree of the Sen- 
ate' ' (His. Eccles. 2, 2). The rejection of the pro- 
posal sufficiently accounts for the absence of an official 
record in Koman history, though the proposal may have 
become legend the following century. The legend itself 
shows how little value such deification could have in the 
minds of pagans : An unknown Hebrew (at that time) 
in a remote province of the Empire to be placed among 
the gods of Rome ! This is an evolution of religion 
which was not expected. Long ago it had been de- 
clared that One should arise out of Judea Who should 
possess the earth. Even so it has come to pass. TLte 
One Saviour and Benefactor of Mankind — rejected by a 
Senate of Eome — has been acknowledged as Lord of 
lords and King of kings. He was predicted by the 
prophets, heralded by angels, crucified by men, received 
up into glory. He was the First and the Last in the 
true system of Divine Evolution. Promised to Eve, seen 
in Abel's sacrifice and Enoch's holy walk, He reappears 
in the covenant with Noah and his sacrifice ; in Abra- 
ham and the renewed covenant ; in Moses and the Daily 
Sacrifice ; in many warning prophets, and in the arms 
of the aged Simeon, who blessed God for the precious 
sight. And He died to make atonement for the sin of 
the world. Surely if Socrates died like a sage, Jesus 
Christ lived and died like a God ! The logic of history 
says, Take Him for your God. 



GOD IN CREATION. 



PART SECOND 



God Enthroned in Redemption 



THE ANSWER OF HISTORY 

TO 

MODERN THEORIES OF THE EVOLUTION OF 
CHRISTIANITY. 



BY 

A CLERGYMAN 

OF THE 

Protestant Episcopal Church, 









NEW YORK : 

THOMAS WHITTAKER, 

2 and 3 Bible House, 

1888. 



Copyright 

1888, 

BY THE AUTHOE, 



INTRODUCTION. 

The treatment of " God in Creation " leads to the 
consideration of God in Eedemption. It is a theme of 
surpassing concern to man. The grand fact is as old as 
Eden. Authentic history has preserved traditions about 
the Serpent and a promised Redeemer, the first Sabbath 
and Worship ; disclosing the longings and yearnings 
of man after Immortality ; how it might be secured, and 
recounting intimations and suggestions of One who 
would redeem lost man. The establishment of a spir- 
itual kingdom was later announced, a kingdom which 
should endure forever, and in which God will be eter- 
nally enthroned. It is of supreme importance. 

Avoiding technical expressions, I have endeavored to 
put the reader in possession of reliable information, 
giving the results of latest discoveries. Some dates 
between Noah and Abraham may be left with an inter- 
rogation. Certainly Professor Sayce does not reconcile 
his " bloom of Accadian poetry between 2300 B.C. and 
1700 B.C." with his new date for Sargon I., viz. 3750 
B.C., who was later than Abraham and Chedorlaomer ! 
It also requires another era for Sargon's library- collec- 
tions of Accadian literature. Such differences, however, 
do not touch the existence of similar ideas respecting 
Eeligion and Eternal Life among the early nations. 
And it is with them that we have to deal ; with Adam's 
ransom from death before his first-born child ; with a 
provided Salvation while man was yet insolidaric unity ; 
thus illustrating that God who created man also re- 
deemed him as soon as fallen. That He originally 
taught men how to live and how to prepare for a future 
life was the belief of the first ages. It is attested by 
Hebrew Scripture, by the monuments of Egypt, by the 
inscriptions and religion of Assyria and Babylonia. 



GOD ENTHRONED IN REDEMPTION. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

I. Legends and Expectations of a Redeemer 5 

II. The First Sabbath and Primitive Worship 38 

III. Immortality in Legends and Longings 71 

IV. The Lamb Slain for Man's Redemption 92 

V. The Spiritual Kingdom a Realm oe Ransomed Souls. . 107 

Conclusion 121 



CONTENTS OF GOD IN CREATION. 

PAGE 

I. Christianity not Evolved from Ghosts and Hero- 
Worship 9 

II. God in Creation and in Worship „ 36 

III. Legends about God and Creation 61 

IV. Legends about Satan and Evil Spirits 80 

V. Deluge Legends and Pagan Deification 97 

Conclusion — Testimony of Tacitus 112 



LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS OF A RE- 

DEEMER. 

It is certain historical fact, so far as we can trace things up, that 
there is one God, the Creator and moral Governor of the world, 
and that mankind is in a state of religion. This was received in 
the first ages. And there is no hint or intimation in history that 
this system was first reasoned out, rather there is express his- 
torical or traditional evidence as ancient as history that it was 
first taught by revelation. Indeed, the state of religion in the 
first ages of which we have any account seems to suppose and 
imply that revelation was the original of it (Bishop Butler, " An- 
alogy," P. 1, 6 and P. 2, 2). 

It is sound doctrine to give some weight to cumulative evi- 
dence, since, when a thing is not improbable in itself, it surely 
adds much to the argument in its favor that facts which tend to 
prove it come from many different and independent sources, from 
those who are quite ignorant of the interest that attaches to their 
discovery, as well as from trained observers who are fully aware 
of the importance of every additional fact and the weight of each 
scrap of evidence (A. R. Wallace, in Nineteenth Century, 1887). 

Moses proclaimed the eternal law of right and of 
righteousness. Based on the character of the soul and 
of correct ethics, he details the covenant obligations 
which man sustains toward God, and God toward man. 
Mutual loyalty was its prominent feature, characteristic 
in both parties, Israel and Jahveh Elohim. But as man 
was prone to err, God made provision for the erring. 



6 LEGENDS AND EXPEC2ATI0NS 

Ordinary offences were to be atoned for by purification 
and sacrifices ; but soul-sins must be visited on the 
offender, and had no provided remedy. 

The Egyptian had no proper idea of atonement, and 
his deliverance from future suffering was based on his 
improved character by various transmigrations. His 
religion was thought to prepare him for another life 
and to secure the favor of God in the present. Early 
Babylonians held both these views in a mixed way. 
They sacrificed to God, sang hymns to Him, and wor- 
shipped Him in various forms, in apparent confidence 
of acceptance. Of this more presently. 

Records of the creation and fall of man suggest that 
he was saved from utter destruction at the Deluge, 
because God had promised man in Eden that the seed 
of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent 
(Gen. 3 : 15). It was a promise ever remembered. It 
went forth among mankind in the first ages, and may 
be traced in the legends and mythologies of the descend- 
ants of Noah. Even before the birth of this Expected 
One He was anticipated, was called the Desire, or the 
thing desired, of all nations (Hag. 2 : 7), words which 
imply more than that " the desirable things, or riches 
of the nations," should flow to the new temple at 
Jerusalem. Very expressive and significant are the 
words : " Shake the heavens, and the earth, and the 
sea, and the dry land, and shake all nations,' ' that the 
riches of those nations may proclaim the glory of Jah- 
veh, and all peoples believe and serve Him. Doubtless 
the prophecy refers to the restored temple and its wor- 
ship, and also to Him who from that place would give 
everlasting peace. Already Babylon had been shaken 
to its foundations for the restoration of the Jews. 
Other conquests of Cyrus and his successors only certi- 



OF A REDEEMER. 7 

fied to that. Darius and Alexander confirmed their 
privileges. But when the One long desired came to His 
temple, a generation did not pass till both temple and 
country were laid in ruins by the Romans. Presently 
1 shall adduce evidence from the three great families of 
mankind, in order to learn what expectations they had 
of Him. 

It is often stated as a law of humanity, that some 
hero, benefactor, or reformer— the Moses of his age 
— is sure to arise upon national emergency : now an 
Horatius at the Bridge, now a Leonidas at the Pass, 
now an Alfred or a Bruce, now a Washington or a 
Bolivar, now a Luther, a Wilberf orce, a Lincoln. Thus 
Noah became a saviour from a flood of waters ; thus 
Abraham delivered Lot from a doomed city j thus 
prophets and reformers saved the peoples for whom 
they pleaded and died, if only for a generation. Wit- 
ness Jonah and Nahum at Nineveh. Witness Elijah 
with Ahab. Witness the Maccabean Princes in Judea. 
But none of them had previously been heralded ; Jesus 
alone was the subject of long preparation. Indeed, the 
remedial principle runs through nature, and is every- 
where operative. On all sides we see provision for the 
healing of wrongs and injuries. It exists in plants and 
in animals, in fish and fowl — in all may be found a 
remedy for fracture and the process of healing. Nay, 
it seems to be an abiding quality in the character of 
Jehovah, that He will not destroy where He can save, in 
accordance with the eternal laws of nature and of right- 
eousness. This explains, as nothing else can, the 
world's expectation of a Saviour, more or less pro- 
nounced among Semites, Hamites, Japhites or Aryans, 
during many ages. For, we may ask, was there not a 
basis of truth in the legend of Berosus, that Xisutbros 
1* 



8 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

or Noah, just before the Deluge, was commanded to 
bury all written documents known to him, at Sippara, a 
city near Babylon, so that the previous knowledge of 
mankind might be preserved ; and that upon leaving 
the Ark the saved family should return to Babylon, dis- 
inter those buried writings, and transmit them to pos- 
terity ? Hence Noah's descendants soon learned all the 
wisdom of the antediluvians, their facts and their 
legends. Be this as it may, much of previous knowl- 
edge was saved and transmitted through Noah and his 
sons, which may easily account for the almost verbal 
exactness of ideas and thoughts which found early ex- 
pression in the different families of man. Hence were 
derived common knowledge of the Fall by a serpent's 
tempting man to sin, knowledge or legends of the Tree 
of Life, and expulsion from Eden. From hence arose 
ideas about the serpent and his evil work against man- 
kind. Hence arose fear of him and efforts at propitia- 
tion ; and thence by a short step men came to adore 
animals. Ignoring this origin, which to my mind is 
logical and historical, Mr. Spencer wanders adrift, like 
one pursuing an ignis fatuus, to account for animal 
worship among mankind. Whereas it seems the nat- 
ural outcome of mistakes and misconceptions in some 
primitive races, of Egyptians and of Hindus. Thus we 
are told that when Satan was ejected from Paradise he 
leaped over a mountain, and alighted on the spot where 
Cabul now stands ! Wherefore the inhabitants of that 
place are called the offspring of Satan. (See Coleman's 
" Mythology of the Hindus/' p. 208, London, 1832.) 

But the Hebrews never fell into such misunderstand- 
ings. So St. Paul says Adam was not deceived by 
the serpent, but the woman (1 Tim. 2 : 14). When 
afflicted with an attack of deadly serpents in the wilder- 



OF A REDEEMER. 

ness, Moses was directed to make a serpent of brass, set 
it on a pole or standard, and say to the sufferers, Look 
upon the serpent and live ! It is the first recorded 
homoeopathic treatment of history. As a lesson to be 
long remembered, that brazen serpent was preserved to 
the reign of Hezekiah, who destroyed the Nebushtan 
abomination ; for Israel had learned to burn incense 
before it. (See Num. 21 : 6-9; the "Speaker's 
Commentary ;" 2 Kings 18 : 4.) In St. John 3 : 14 our 
Lord makes that brazen serpent a type of Himself, and 
of the healing virtues proceeding from Him. In St. 
Luke 10 : 19 He gives His disciples authority to tread 
on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the 
enemy. So in His last words to St. John in vision, He 
represents that old serpent, the dragon, the Devil and 
Satan, as seized and bound for a thousand years ; both 
captured and crashed (Rev. 20 : 2). So we find repeated 
references to the serpent as an evil worker against man, 
from his disobedience in Eden to his punishment and 
deliverance ; and he becomes a type of salvation and 
a trophy of the Redeemer. There is, therefore, no his- 
toric reason why we should not accept an actual serpent 
in the Garden, who tempted Mother Eve. Certainly she 
sinned in the crucial test, and rather than lose her and 
be left alone, Adam also sinned with her. But be the 
real temptation what it may, both Adam and Eve dis- 
obeyed the law which had been given them. They lost 
their conscious uprightness, and hid themselves among 
the trees, when the Divine voice spoke again to them. 
Yet with their punishment and expulsion fiom Eden, 
the promise of a full salvation was made, and that the 
Seed of the woman should crush the serpent's head. It 
is the Gospel in Genesis. It is the hope of the world. 
The records of a common practice indicate a common 



10 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

belief and origin. By stratagem the Old Serpent called 
the Devil may have bodied himself in a cunning ser- 
pent, and so have more readily deceived Eve. Her ex- 
perience had not caused her to be suspicious of the 
living creatures about her in the Garden. Why should 
she fear evil of any kind, or from any source ? Not a 
tear had then been shed, not a pain felt, not a disap- 
pointment experienced. Only one prohibition had been 
given : Eat not of that tree ! But childlike she forgot, 
when enticed and persuaded ; she yielded to the promise 
of becoming as a God in knowledge, not supposing it 
was the dreadful knowledge of sin. So the archdeceiver 
triumphed over a beautiful but inexperienced woman. 
In fact, but a small conquest, yet it involved stupendous 
consequences. Eve sinned through her emotions and 
desires ; Adam through his affections and his will. In 
him it was wilful sin. In both it was transgression of 
Divine law, and law known to them. Bravely, we may 
say, they both suffered the penalty and accepted their 
lot : she in submissive love, he in labor and in sorrow 
(Gen. 3 : 16, 17). The promise of a Conqueror to be 
born of her was large encouragement ; so in the birth 
of Cain she may have thought that she had received 
the expected man from Jahveh, not foreseeing that it 
would be another son, Seth, who should become a wor- 
shipper of Him, and with his family and associates call 
upon Him in public assemblies. Later on it was prom- 
ised that God should dwell in the tents of Shem, and 
enlarge Japheth, whose descendants became the great 
colonizers of the world. Shem indeed was the centre 
and the representative of true religion among men. In 
Israel especially we see a people the most " self -enclosed 
and self-contained" of any ancient nation. They 
achieved more than any other in the way of theology 



OF A REDEEMER. 11 

and spiritual culture. " There is nothing among other 
nations which may be compared with the Psalms, Job, 
and other inspired singers ; nor with Isaiah and other 
prophets. Isolated Israel produced a literature which 
in pathos and sublimity far distanced the achievements 
of Babylonians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, and the Aryan 
peoples. The beginning and the end of Hebrew history 
tend to this lofty aim ; and the manifold changes, even 
the confusions and perversities which are apparent 
throughout the long thread of her history, ever tend to 
the solution of the great problem which the human 
mind was to work out here. The aim was lofty enough 
to occupy a thousand years in noblest struggles to attain. 
The history of Shem in Judea illustrates the growth of 
true religion, rising through all stages to perfection ; 
pressing on through all conflicts to the highest victory, 
and finally revealing itself in full glory and power, in 
order to spread irresistibly from this centre, never again 
to be lost, but to become the eternal possession and 
blessing of all nations. In the closing scene of all antiq- 
uity, it still maintained its place, reacting upon the 
world through its spiritual power and advancing to the 
highest end conceivable. It was a goal in striving to 
reach which most nations lost their ivay far too early. 
After two thousand years' struggle, this one people 
alone actually possessed it. How effectively they pre- 
served the true religion from degenerating into false- 
hood, their literature and traditions clearly show." 
Thus Ewald, the German rationalist, laid the founda- 
tion for answering Mr. Spencer, even before the treas- 
ures of Chaldea were deciphered. Again he says : " A 
story essentially the same and sprung from one occur- 
rence is multiplied by successive changes in details 
into two or more discordant narratives, which being 



12 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

reproduced in different places and then subsequently 
brought together, finally appears as so many different 
events." Hence arises confusion in history, but such 
history can neither authenticate itself nor overturn the 
true original. Once more from Ewald : " Hebrew 
tradition possesses a vivid sense of truth and fidelity, of 
sobriety and modesty, and an aversion to everything 
immoderate, vain, and frivolous, by virtue of which it 
may be regarded as the diametrical opposite of all 
heathen, especially of Egyptian and Indian traditions" 
(" History of Israel," vol. i., p. 31). 

The first part of this treatise presented in brief the 
answer of history, as read in the early annals of man- 
kind touching their ideas of God and His worship. We 
considered enough of ethnic or national origins to learn 
where to look and what to accept, and that we may 
safely disregard all echoes of races here and there, which 
are not historically traceable to one of the three sons of 
Noah. All accumulated puttings from Bongo and 
Samoan, from African and Malagasy, from Australians 
and Mongolians, from Scythians, Tartars, and Chinese, 
from American Indians, Aztecs, Toltecs, and Peruvians, 
have no more relevancy to the evolution of Christianity 
than to a definition of the North Pole ! It is through 
Noah and his descendants that we must trace the true 
development of religion. It is from Shem, in whose 
tents God promised to dwell, and from Japheth, whom 
God promised to enlarge ; yea, from Hamites, who early 
went astray, and accepted debased views of theology and 
a sensuous worship. The true religion has nothing to 
do with any other people, if such existed, even if derived 
from a fourth or a fifth son of Noah. It has nothing to 
do with pre-Adamites nor with men of the glacial 
period. Our sympathies and interest may go out to all 



OF A REDEEMER. 13 

who seem to be human and to the higher orders of verte- 
brates ; but our argument only requires that we consider 
the covenant religion of the Hebrews, which was per- 
fected in Jesus Christ. Yet we shall find intimations and 
prophecies in paganism which were doubtless derived 
from a common origin before mankind separated and 
branched off into the three great families above named. 
Such findings and unconscious evidences have surprised 
the writer, while they have strengthened his faith in 
Christianity and assurance in its promises and its power. 
We shall proceed on historic grounds alone in order to 
reach indisputable conclusions. With Adam and his 
posterity, with JSToah and his descendants, we stand 
upon strong foundations. From them we derive the 
Old Testament and the New Testament. We may trace 
the serpent in various ethnic traditions and the legends 
of some ancient saviours, whose home and origin were 
Eden, with expectations arising from a Conqueror 
there promised. Tribes and nations came to adore the 
serpent because of this, and because of its power of good 
and of evil. How to obtain the good and avoid the evil 
was of the utmost importance to mankind. The narra- 
tive of the serpent in Genesis illustrates Isa. 27 : 1, 
when predicting the overthrow and removal of all evils, 
moral, personal, and national, from the chosen people : 
" In that day the Lord with his sore and great and 
strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, 
even leviathan that crooked serpent ; and He shall slay 
the dragon that is in the sea." The Eevised Version 
and that of Dr. Briggs change not the sense for our 
purpose, which is to trace the legends ethnically. Ref- 
erences to the serpent, generally as an evil worker 
against man, are frequent in Scripture. Semitic Phoe- 
nicians represent their god Noum by a serpent. They 



14 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

had coins showing an altar with its fire ascending to the 
sky, and a serpent on each side of the altar. They had 
coins representing a youth standing between two ser- 
pents erect ; coins also having a tree between two altars, 
and a serpent coiled around the tree ; coins representing 
serpent worship and serpent crushing.* Semitic Baby- 
lonians colonized ancient Assyria. The bricks of those 
lands tell us of the god Bel, who fought against Tiamat, 
the old serpent who was driven from heaven ; and of 
Merodach, who was the active agent in creation, ever 
subordinate to his Father Ea, who became a great bene- 
factor to mankind — in later legends more warlike — 
going about the world to set right all that appeared 
wrong ; seeking to remove curses and spells, and in 
difficult cases applying to his Father how to combat the 
influence of evil spirits. Thus Bel Merodach after pro- 
longed struggles conquered the dragon Tiamat, the 
" scaly one," w r hose story was well known to dwellers 
on the Euphrates and the Tigris. Classic versions of 
that story pointed the pen of Milton ages before modern 
discoveries of the original legends. Egyptian sculptures 
often show Horus standing in a boat, and piercing the 
head of a serpent with his spear, as he rises from the 
water. The great contest between Horus and Set, or 
Typho, is said to have lasted three days and nights, 
during which the gods changed themselves into the 
form of animals, probably lions, and then renewed the 
terrible struggle (Wilkinson, vol. iii., pp. 148-152). It 
was from this legend that the Greeks derived their story 
of the destruction of the serpent Python by Apollo. 
Doubtless their mythical war of the Titans was similarly 

* Such coins are in the New York Museum of Art, and repro- 
duced in a cut of "Wide Awake " for April, 1888. 



OF A REDEEMER. 15 

derived, or from Babylonian legends. It is found in 
the records of all ancient religions, and probably arose 
from variations of the serpent in Eden. " Poet, proph- 
et, physician, harper, god of victory, and angel of death 
all in one, Apollo," says Eawlinson, " is always on the 
side of right, ever true to Zeus, and not much inferior in 
power. It is, perhaps, a fanciful analogy which has 
traced him to the Second Person of the Christian 
Trinity ; but the analogy indicates the pure and lofty 
character of the god, equalling, if not transcending the 
highest idea of divinity which has been elaborated by 
unaided human wisdom." And, says Friedriech, " this 
triad of Zeus, Athene, and Apollo bears an unmistak- 
able analogy to the Christian Trinity of Father, Son, 
and Holv Ghost — Zeus the God Father, Athene the 
Holy Ghost, and Apollo the Son of God, the Declarer 
of the Divine will." In the same strain Mr. Gladstone 
says : " In Apollo are represented the legendary antici- 
pations of a person to come, in whom should be com- 
bined all the great offices in which God the Son is now 
made known to man, as the Light of our paths, the 
Physician of our diseases, the Judge of our misdeeds, 
and the Conqueror and Disarmer, but not yet Abolisher 
of death." Max Miiller, however, pronounces it " blas- 
phemy to consider these fables of the heathen as cor- 
rupted and misinterpreted fragments of a Divine reve- 
lation once granted to mankind." But he seems to for- 
get that the Bible and the brick inscriptions represent 
the Creator as making an address to the newly created 
man, instructing him in his duties, and, according to G. 
Smith's translation, " pointing out the glory of his state" 
(" Chaldean Acct.," 14 and 15). Even with divinely 
imparted knowledge, man was still without experience, 
and so not forearmed to meet emergencies, especially 



16 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

those arising from a hostile power, such as Satanic in- 
fluence in the serpent. M. Lenormant finds the evil 
serpent among Phoenicians and Greeks, on the Euphrates 
and in Persia, in Egypt and in Genesis, and that he was 
defeated and imprisoned in the abyss ; thus illustrating 
primitive traditions, and reappearing in the Apocalypse 
(12 and 20). If Ormuzd found a " delicious spot " for 
the home of his favored children, the Iranians, Ahriman 
ruins it by sending a poisonous serpent to vex them. 
This evil principle is ever opposed to the good in man 
and in nature, typifying the moral strife between good 
and evil in creation and between light and darkness. 
He is no mere storm-cloud, the emblem of chaos, but 
he symbolizes evil powers in their widest significance. 
So Lenormant suggests that a serpent-form may have 
been given to the tempter in Genesis, in order to express 
a fact of large importance, and so the fall of man by 
means of a serpent impressed itself on the race as an 
indelible truth, which cannot be effaced, and which noth- 
ing outside of Eevelation has been able to explain [Con- 
temporary Review, 1879). From Eden to Babylon the 
legend early travelled, and there found deep lodgment. 
Babylonian gods were acknowledged beyond the Tigris. 
Belitan, from old Bel, is found among Iranians, whose 
god was Ormuzd, with Mithra, the brilliant, and the 
Mediator of the later Persian system. According to 
Hardwick, the Persians expected a Mediator, whom they 
named Sosiosh, the Benefactor ; greater than any hero- 
prophet, who should work out redemption for man, and 
sing the glories of Ormuzd. He is represented as kneel- 
ing upon a prostrate bull, which he slays for sacrifice, 
although attacked by a dog, a serpent, and a scorpion. 
The sacrifice was of fructifying virtue. What was thus 
taught of Mithra, the heretic Mani taught of Christ. 



OF A REDEEMER. 17 

His system and the heathen form of Mithraism flour- 
ished in the mother-city of the Eoman Empire, and it 
was planted by the ardor of foreign legions in the Eoman 
capital of Britain. Hence certain customs there. (See 
" Christ and other Masters/' pp. 568-571, and JSTeander.) 

Spiegel suggests a liturgic and sacrificial service to 
Ormuzd as existing in Persia at an early period ; that 
the elemental powers of nature, even the spirit of the 
worshipper, came to be invoked ; also the beneficent 
genii of the invisible world. (See Hardwick, p. 528.) 
We know that from Homer to Milton, and later, poets 
w r ere wont to invoke the Muse, who was but an imag- 
inary goddess, to inspire their song. There was no 
polytheism in that. 

The earliest departure from the worship of One 
Supreme and invisible God arose in Chaldea, where the 
sun was first deified and worshipped. Adoration of the 
Majesty of Heaven extended to Persia, to Egypt, and 
to India. But it arose on the Euphrates. We have 
ample evidence of commercial and other relations 
between all these nations and with the Hebrews. Thus 
Moses becomes the Menu of the Hindus, and inspiration 
is accorded to him. So Zoroaster the First — if indeed 
there were two of that name in Persia — claimed to be 
inspired. Truths of theology passed from one people 
to another. Thus India possessed similar thoughts with 
Israel, touching the Unity of Deity and eternal life. 
Hence the resemblance of early Hindu writings with our 
Bible. But, says Maurice ("India," vol. ii., pp. #88-90), 
" a selfish priesthood led to corruption of doctrine in 
order to please and control a sensuous people. They 
taught metempsychosis and idol worship. They fostered 
adoration of the symbol in place of the spiritual orig- 
inal, and to honor the Rajah in place of the Creator. 



18 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

Brahmans fattened on the spoils of superstition, and 
exulted in their success. They covered the walls of 
sacred caverns with symbolic figures and statues of 
Rajahs ; bade the people approach them with reverence 
and recount their exploits. Figures and emblems of 
the mercy and goodness of God were offset by those 
representing His justice and wrath, in order to terrify 
the beholders. Thus they were awed by means of false 
deities." No wonder that Brahmans finally despaired 
of all avatars which their imaginations had created ; no 
wonder that Buddhists sought comfort and hope in 
some other Light of Asia than Gautama revealed ; that 
Persians began to desire a more helpful Sosiosh, of un- 
failing brilliancy, whom their Magi discerned in the star 
which pointed to the Manger of Bethlehem. He was 
the Brightness of His Father's glory, the Brother and 
the Saviour of mankind. Persians indeed worshipped 
" the Victorious One " who drove Ahriman, in the form 
of a two-footed serpent, from heaven ; who was believed 
to be the guardian of men in life and their judge after 
death ; who ever opposed the evil work of Mithra the 
Bad. For their dualism produced two Mithras, the 
Bad Mithra and the Good Mithra, the latter being con- 
substantial with Ahuramazda. 

But there are other considerations which account for 
resemblances in doctrine and symbol : Noah identified 
with Menu, and Moses with the First Zoroaster, or his 
contemporary, while the Greek Pythagoras was a dis- 
ciple of the second great Persian teacher. Numa, 
Buddha and Confucius, Thales, Pythagoras and Solon, 
Daniel, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, formed a galaxy of 
famous men acting upon society, all but one of whom 
flourished within a single century. Abraham at Beer- 
sheba and Scythians in their mountain wilds worshipped 



OF A REDEEMER. 19 

God in groves of oak and gloom ; Druids in Gaul, Britain, 
and Mona, and Erahmans in India so worshipped ; sim- 
ilar sacrifices were offered : first, animals ; later, human 
victims. The evolution was from the offering of Cain 
and the sacrifice of Abel to the child-victims before 
Moloch and death in the Ganges. 

" In Persia's hollowed caves, the Lord of day- 
Pours thro' the central gloom his fervid ray." 

The setting sun, the rising sun, or the sun in noonday 
splendor represented God to the Persian. This fact 
and that the Jews had long been captive dwellers in 
that country give special significance to the words of 
Mai. 4 : 2, " Unto you that fear my name, shall the 
Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings ;" 
evidently referring to % the winged disk symbol of 
Ormuzd. Mithra, too, another name for the Sun-God, 
was worshipped in Iran and in India. He was the 
middle character or Mediator of the Persian system. 
We also find him, according to standard writers, in the 
Vishnu, in Krishna, and Agni of the Hindus ; while in 
Egypt Osiris and Vulcan were his representative and 
equivalent, the Enlightener and Purifier. Those who 
adored him offered sacred fire, kindled by the solar ray, 
on their altars. A" king in reverent posture officiating 
at a fire altar is strikingly portrayed. (See plate, p. 97, 
of Maurice's second volume of " Indian Antiquities.") 
The frontispiece of that volume exhibits such altar with 
the sacred flame ascending, kindled by the solar ray, 
and kept ever burning. Doubtless the thought that the 
heavenly bodies represented the Deity led Aryans, 
Phoenicians, and Egyptians to regard the stars as ani- 
mated intelligences, and to give them adoration. They 
were the source of large beneficence. Abraham himself 



20 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

was a student of the heavens, and when he made his old 
and trusty servant swear to deal rightly by him in the 
matter of Isaac and Kebekah, he invoked the Lord God 
of heaven to witness it (Gen. 24 : 3, 7). And out of 
heaven came the voice which promised to multiply his 
seed as the stars of heaven (22 : 15, 17). Indeed, St. 
Paul declared to the Eomans that the invisible things 
of God, even His eternal power and Godhead, are clearly 
seen in the works of creation (1 : 20). True, there were 
opposing forces, spirits of evil and dark-visaged demons 
oppugnant to Brahm ; Ahriman oppugnant to Ormuzd 
and to Mithra the Good ; in Egypt Typho was oppug- 
nant to Osiris the Benefactor. And in each nation this 
hostile being assumed the form of an evil serpent, and 
was overthrown. In Greece, near a thousand years be- 
fore our era, Hesiod sang of the war in heaven " against 
Titans in dire combat, when the sea roared, earth re- 
sounded, the wide heaven trembled throughout its vast ex- 
tent, and hurled forth the Titan brood" (" Theogony," 
lines 883-939). Some centuries later iEschylus gave 
another version of 

" The furious Typhon, who 'gainst all the gods made war ; 
His horrid jaws with serpent-hiss breathed slaughter ; 
From his eyes the gorgon-glare of baleful lightnings flashed, 
As his proud force would seize the empire of the sky : 
A bolt pierced thro' his soul, and withered all his strength." 

— Prometheus Bound. 

Every celebration of the Pythian games told the 
assembled Greeks of their Apollo who had killed the 
huge serpent Python, said to have been evolved from 
the mud of Deucalion's deluge. So in memory of the 
conflict Apollo instituted the Pythian games to testify 
of his triumph. It was the echo of Eden heard in 
Attica. Before the Exodus Greece had dealings with 



OF A BEDEEMER. 21 

Egypt, learned of the conquests of Horus over Typho, 
of his standing on crocodiles playing with serpents, and 
how he turned the serpent back in triumph. (See Dunc- 
ker, " Hist. Antiq.," vol. i., p. 60.) Thus we find him 
the same evil worker in all mythologies before Christ, 
either as Tiamat or Typho, Ahriman or Mithra the 
Bad, Titan or Typhon, and by all represented as a 
dragon, serpent, or gorgon. It explains the origin of 
animal worship, which was to propitiate him and escape 
his wrath. So animals came to symbolize the Deity : a 
ram for Noum and for Jupiter, a goat for Pan, a bull 
for Osiris, a vulture for Isis, a hawk for Horus, an ape 
for Eama, a ram also for Kneph, etc. Egyptians carved 
a serpent over the doors and windows of their temples, 
perhaps to signify that devout worshippers would thus 
triumph over evil ; for had not Hebrews found healing 
virtue by looking at a serpent of brass ? He was, in fact, 
domesticated by many dwellers on the Nile. Greeks 
and Eomans regarded him as the emblem of beneficence. 
Of interest to us Aryans is the fact that at Abury, near 
Salisbury, a temple or a burial enclosure was constructed 
at an early period, on the serpentine plan, similar in 
base outline to that of Stonehenge. (See plate in Cole- 
man's " Hindus,' ' p. 105.) In Egypt, India, ancient 
Britain, in Mexico and Peru, the serpent was honored or 
even worshipped, and temples adorned with him, or 
patterned after him when circled in repose. It suggests 
the old antagonism of good and evil, and perhaps that 
even the evil possessed some good qualities which would 
triumph in the end over the evil. In Japan a red fox 
was the emblem of the Devil, while a three-headed idol 
symbolized the Good Being, paralleled by the globe, 
the wing, and the serpent of Egypt, whose hymns to 
Osiris disclose a Triune Deity. Coleman says the craft 



22 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

and cupidity of priests in India and Egypt led to the 
degradation of the symbols and to debasement of the 
mysteries of religion. Cavern sanctuaries and conse- 
crated groves in both countries, in Britain and in Ger- 
many, testify to a common origin, if not to devotion, 
in Brahmans and in Druids. In Persia also prayers 
were offered in sacred grottoes and in embowering for- 
ests, and men chanted their orisons to their beneficent 
Creator. Zoroaster in Bactria and Buddha in India 
taught similar practices and doctrines. 

EXTENSIVE USE OE FIRE IN WORSHIP. 

The mystic letters which formed the word M mean 
solar fire. The orb of God, or fire, kindled the sacred 
flame upon the altars of Persia to her God. Thus God 
aids the Iranian in propitiation of Him ; so in India, 
though the people may not have understood the full 
import of their sacrificial flame. But in a sense it 
was mediatorial in its character. It was of God, inter- 
ceding with God for the benefit of him who offered it. 
Thus adoration of Osiris, Mithra, Vishnu, Agni, and 
Vulcan was adoration of God the Supreme by mediation. 
Perverted in methods, it still retained the essential ele- 
ment of propitiatory sacrifice. This is a point worth 
remembering when considering the use of the solar ray 
in kindling the altar-fires of India and Persia, and in 
the worship paid to Mithra and other fire gods. It had 
similar reference to a Mediator with the slain animals 
of Israel and Judah, but it was not according to the 
Divine appointment as instituted by Moses. Yet we 
may ask, Why deny the value of such sacrifice for those 
with whom the covenant of Moses was not made ? 
These studies suggest that the ordinary treatment of this 
question has been on too narrow a basis. Salvation 



OF A REDEEMER. 23 

was of the Jews ; Jesus was of the family of David ; 
" but in every nation he that feareth God, and worketh 
righteousness, is accepted with Him" (Acts 10 : 35). 
Are we not therefore justified in applying these words 
of St. Peter to Persians, Hindus, and Egyptians in their 
feeling after God and worship of Him according to their 
own forms ? Three times a day the Brahmans and 
three times a day the Egyptian priests and three times 
a day the devout Hebrew offered sacrifice, burned in- 
cense, or prayed aloud to their respective ideas of Deity ; 
nay, the Egyptian priest rose and bathed at midnight, 
in obedience to his ritual. Bemains of temples in 
Babylon still certify that her people worshipped the Sun 
and other heavenly bodies. Even in Jerusalem the sacri- 
fice daily offered was in part a burnt offering. Thus in 
the single element of fire in tcorship and of the bodies 
or names which symbolized fire, Chaldeans and Pales- 
tinians, Persians and Hindus, Egyptians, Greeks, and 
Eomans followed a common practice derived from a 
similar origin. With them Fire ever symbolized purity 
and purification. Fire purified the worshipper of the 
Sun, which was supposed to be fire ; purified the wor- 
shipper of Ormuzd and Mithra, symbolized by fire ; 
purified the worshipper of Osiris, the Sun = Fire ; purified 
the worshipper of Brahm as represented by Vishnu and 
Agni, who stood for Fire. Indeed, by all these peoples 
Fire, Incense, and the Sun, under some name, were ele- 
ments of worship, or of the worshipped, for purposes of 
purification. They had sacrificial fires upon the altar 
and sacramental fires for cleansing from sin and pro- 
pitiation of God (Coleman, p. 105). Was it thus that 
Job beheld the shining sun or the moon in her bright- 
ness ? Why was he asked if he could bind or restrain 
the sweet influences of Pleiades ? (31 : 26 ; 38 : 31.) Or 
2 



24 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

was the writer a Sabaean who gave a Chaldean, Persian, 
or Indian coloring to his book ? Inscriptions tell us of 
a ' ; Mediator and benefactor, a Protector who does good 
to men, who would raise men to life again.' ' There is 
evidence that the " Babylonian consciousness presup- 
poses a conviction of sin, so requiring a saviour ; hence 
arose the idea of vicarious punishment. Belief in the 
original purity and innocence of the race, which was 
lost and ruined by Tiamat, was the primitive belief." 
Man sought to regain it. Conscious of his sin, he is 
ready to give " the head of his child for his own head, 
the brow of his child for his own breast;" suggesting 
human victims in sacrifice ? Even Bel is said to have 
offered up his only son in sacrifice, which recalls the 
case of Isaac, while the substituted ram suggests that 
the incident occurred in March (Sayce's " Babylonian 
Lit.," pp. 45-55). Fortunately, we can much easier 
define the period of Abraham than that of Bel's sacri- 
fice, and the line of international communication in 
those days indicates that Chaldeans may have got the 
incident of Isaac and the ram from Phoenicians, rather 
than that Abraham and Moses got it from Babylonia. 
In any case, Abraham's example was an illustration 
o£ Heaven's prohibition. But earlier still, why was 
Noah's offering in gratitude for his deliverance a burnt 
sacrifice, whose odor was sweet to Jehovah ? Indeed, 
we discover a fire- cleansing idea and propitiation in the 
sacrifice of Noah, in the fire altars of Persia, and all 
other use of fire and incense in approaches to God. The 
magnificent temple at Elephanta exhibited the splendor 
of Mithric worship in that period, and linked together 
the religions ideas of Indians and Chinese. But 
Chaldea was the home and originator of Sabseanism. 
Her pyramidal form of temples and use of the solar ray 



OF A REDEEMER. 25 

passed thence to Egypt (Maurice, " Indian Antiq.," vol. 
ii., p. 217). The Pagoda of Coromandel was planned to 
correspond with the cardinal points, haying lofty pyram- 
idal gateways in the middle of its walls, as in Egypt. 
And a temple like that of Elephanta is found at Din- 
dara, Upper Egypt (plate at p. 225, vol. i.) The Mith- 
ric Egyptian grotto and the mystic cell of Osiris sug- 
gest him as the African Mithra. Hence it was quite 
historic for Bryant and others to regard the rites and 
cult of Isis and Osiris as intended and originally insti- 
tuted to commemorate the Deluge, and that the worship 
of Brahm in India was derived from that of Noah, who 
was the Menu of Sanscrit writers. Grecian rites closely 
resembled them, as did the Roman altar fire (Maurice, 
vol. ii., pp. 19-22). The caverns of Salsette, an island 
off Bombay, and Elephanta, all richly adorned with 
symbolic sculptures, quite eclipsed in august impressive- 
ness all else in Asia. Stonehenge and Abury failed in 
such adornment. Caverns were first used as sanctuaries, 
then temples or altars on mountain heights. Thus 
Mithra was adored in Irania and in India. Porphyry, 
the writer against Christianity, in his " Antro-Nympha- 
rum," would press the nymphs of Homer into use in 
order to support his theories, but he never denied the 
primitive worship of mankind. One can but marvel 
how modern scientists ignore the testimony of pagan 
writers touching the evolution of religion. Homer, 
Hesiod, ^Eschylus, etc., afford them no support. Con- 
sider : Upper Egypt has a rock on which are elaborate 
sculptures representing Sun-worship, with altars sur- 
mounted with lambs for sacrifice ! The height of the 
sculpture is fifty feet, the width fifty feet, and the chis- 
elled work six feet deep. In it are three sacrificial piles, 
supposed to denote the three Egyptian seasons, or some 



26 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

Triad ; while seven vases represent the seven days of 
the week. Here we have fire and lambs for sacrifice, 
evidently of an early date (plate in Maurice, vol. ii., 
at p. 209). Mithra was the great Benefactor in the 
Persian system after the sixth century, the Sun in glory, 
having his counterpart in India and Egypt. Hence 
their caverns, grottoes, rocky and subterranean shrines 
to the Sun-God. Superstitions and licentious rites were 
also similar in those countries and in Greece, with some 
echoes in Britain. Their lesser gods were not deified 
men, but deified qualities and attributes which personi- 
fied God, and so were worshipped. Thus the Bull of 
Siva and the Bull of Osiris symbolized God, and were 
adored. There were sacred serpents in both countries ; 
there was the Eagle of Jupiter, and the Eagle of Vishnu ; 
Vulcan and Bacchus, Isis and Thoth, Hercules and 
Hermes, represented the beneficent in nature, in art, or 
in prowess. So the Indian Eama was regarded as an 
incarnation of Preserving Power. Why Eama should 
ever have been called a son of Gush is a question for 
ethnologists ; for the Hindus of the Vedas were Aryans 
from Japheth ; but all are descendants of Noah. Pos- 
sibly legends of Southern India got mixed with those of 
the Northern people. If the later Zoroaster and Darius 
Hystaspes visited India to receive and communicate 
knowledge upon matters of common interest, especially 
religion, then what was essential in Fire worship was 
doubtless considered by them, who were reverent offerers 
of the solar flame (Maurice, vol. ii., pp. 130-132). But 
in India, as in Egypt, the priests kept the people in 
ignorance of the highest theology and of the Divine 
Unity. Paintings, ceremonies, and spectacular exhibi- 
tions were called to their aid, and were more impressive 
than mere contemplation of Brahm. Mysteries cele- 



OF A REDEEMER. 27 

brated in darkness and the silence of night overawed 
the imagination of Hindus and of Greeks, until those 
initiated learned the delusion, or learned the higher 
truth, according as it might be unfolded or the super- 
stition exposed. But what pure mind would not revolt 
to see that prostitution was throned upon the altars ? 

Yet there was to be seen in the cavern of the Ele- 
phanta sanctuary a recess which had but one symbol of 
the Deity, which expressed His Unity ; at the same 
time the exterior of the temple was covered with mytho- 
logical sculptures. We must allow the joint existence 
of the true and the false. But that single symbol 
taught the Oneness of God. Ancient colonies from 
Chaldea made cavern sanctuaries in India and in Egypt, 
which expressed similar religious ideas and showed a 
common origin ; they might differ at a later time. In 
Thebes, Elephanta, and Athens the religious feeling 
was expressed by similar symbolism, sculpture, and 
ornament. Maurice, Coleman, Wilkinson, etc., make 
Osiris to represent the productive power, while Isis and 
Ceres represented the fruitful earth, the two former 
being personified by the Sun and Moon. Moreover, 
Osiris on the lotus plant, serpent worship, and the 
mundane egg were equally familiar to Indian sages and 
to Egyptian priests. And their most venerated idols 
were personified representatives of Deity, as also of 
their exalted Rajahs. 

Osiris, we find, was ever regarded as the Beneficent 
One and Bestower of blessings upon man, while living 
among them, and, like our Lord, he becomes their Judge 
after death. In this he was more than Mithra as gen- 
erally understood, while both were opposed by an Evil 
One : Mithra by the Devil of Persia and Osiris by the 
Devil of Egypt. After wise instruction and govern- 



28 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

ment of Egypt for twenty-eight years, establishing their 
religious worship, he traversed the world for like benefi- 
cent purposes, and won the nations to him by his teach- 
ings, his music, and his poetry. Finally he is enticed 
into a coffer by Typho, who shut the lid, fastened it 
down, and set the whole afloat upon the river. On his 
behalf Horus fought three great battles with Typho, 
and defeated him. It evidently symbolizes the conflict 
of Good and Evil, light and darkness, man's bane 
against his benefactor, resulting in the triumph of 
Eighteousness. The mythical son of Cronos and Ehea, 
Osiris was the chief of the Second Egyptian Triad, and 
the only pagan Deity who was believed to have been 
restored to life and honor after death, becoming the 
acknowledged Judge of Amenti, where all the dead 
must pass the last ordeal. Thus this old legend of 
Egypt echoes the promise of Eden, and suggests that 
its coloring must have been received from ideas and 
intercourse with ancient Hebrews ; that descent from 
Noah and the going down of Abraham, Joseph, and 
Jacob to the land of the Nile originated and fostered 
Egyptian intimations of a Messiah long before He came. 
And so two very ancient peoples, Chaldeans and Miz- 
raim, in their Merodach and Osiris, who went about 
doing good, furnish a dim parallel to Him who in Judea 
taught the m altitudes, and fed the hungry, and healed 
the afflicted, and then died to save the world. 

Osiris was often identified with Ea, as in the formula 
Osiris-Ea, and having the attributes of Ea. He then is 
the great Father, and Isis the great Mother ; thus elicit- 
ing the love, praise, and adoration of men. Hymns 
were sung to Him, temples erected, sacrifices offered ; 
but not as to a myth or a deified hero, but as represent- 
ing the great God. We also find that while many 



OF A UEDEEMEH. 29 

Egyptians petted, fostered, and idolized serpents, repre- 
senting them as beneficent or as trophies in sculptures 
ornamenting their temples, or in ring shape, with the 
tail in their mouth, indicating that their power to injure 
was self- destroyed, yet Horus is often represented in 
the act of killing a serpent by piercing its head through 
with a spear ; Horus standing on the heads of crocodiles, 
emblems of Satan, denoting his conquest of the Evil 
One. Horus also stands spear in hand thrusting it 
through the head of the dragon Apap. This may be 
seen in striking illustrations in Sir G. Wilkinson's 
" Egypt," vol. ii., plates 33 and. 34. If we regard Osiris, 
Isis, and Horus, the Second Egyptian Triad, as the 
national expression of the hope of a Saviour, it all the 
more emphasizes what was taught of our Lord Himself 
as the Conqueror of Evil and the Eestorer of Humanity. 
Certainly, good government, earthly blessings, and 
future happiness were supposed to be conferred on 
Egyptians by their Second Triad, the most popular and 
most generally worshipped throughout Egypt, and 
doing for that people very much the same as our Lord 
did for the Christian Church. But we need not look 
for the pure and recondite Hebrew-Christian idea of 
the Redeemer, w r ho as God in man lived in Judea, and 
on the cross made atonement for the world's sin ; not 
in Egypt, not in Persia ; yet in those nations we may 
find intimations and scintillations of it. 

INCARNATIONS OF THE HINDUS. 

We are now prepared to glance at the so-called Incar- 
nations or Avatars of the Hindus ; not indeed to find the 
Son of God there, but perhaps some faint prophecies 
and illustrations of thoughts about Him. If we allow 
an early Teacher of Persia who was contemporary with 



30 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

Moses we may also admit a later reformer of that coun- 
try, who tried to bring the people back to a purer wor- 
ship and wiser thought of God. He was the contem- 
porary of Daniel and Ezekiel, of Pythagoras and Pisis- 
tratus, of Jeremiah when captive in Egypt, and of 
Etruscans when struggling for domination in Eome. 
Moralist and reformer, he was also the high-priest of 
Iran ; but I can find little historic ground for suppos- 
ing that he was a teacher of the Hindus. For this was 
Buddha Gautama, who is represented by some in almost 
the same character as our Kedeemer, being the ninth 
incarnation of Vishnu. Buddha was the son of a King 
and heir to his throne, but forsook both, wife and child, 
that by the practice of asceticism and severe studies he 
might learn how to cure the evils of his time, and to 
teach more genial and beneficent doctrines than then 
prevailed among his people. These, however, were not 
written out till after his death, so that his real teach- 
ings are set forth with poetical additions. He is re- 
ported to have said, " Let all evils or sins of this degen- 
erate age fall upon me, but let the world be redeemed." 
Yet Brahmans, Buddhists, and Jains alike reject the 
notion of a representative man, and repudiate the idea 
of vicarious suffering, holding that sin shall find the 
sinner, who must endure the consequences of his mis- 
deeds, in each state of his existence ; that heaven nor 
hell can extinguish the influence of good or of bad acts ; 
that degenerate man may become good by culture, and 
that the power of such moral transformation is by the 
grace of endeavor. Hence salvation is the outcome of 
mortification and self-subdual ; perfectibility arises 
from perpetual efforts and strivings after it. This per- 
fection Gautama is said to have attained, and at the 
ripe age of fourscore years " ascended to the hall of 



OF A REDEEMER. 31 

Glory," 543 b. c. (Coleman's " Hindus, " p. 184 ; Profes- 
sor Williams in Contemporary Review, 1879, and others). 
Buddha taught that there are tiventy-six heavens, one 
above another, where the good are supremely happy, 
forgetful of all past evils and sorrows ; while there are 
thirty-four larger and one hundred and twenty smaller 
hells, in which sinners are punished. His doctrine, 
therefore, was not supremely genial and beneficent. 
Yet he was deified and worshipped for the good he did 
to India. But his deification was 2500 vears after Noah, 
1500 years after Abraham, and nearly a millennium after 
the legislation of Moses. Clearly he is not the Messiah 
of the prophets. Learned Brahmans acknowledged and 
adored One God, without form or quality, external to 
themselves, unchangeable, and occupying all space, 
omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Very early 
he is represented with three faces, looking every way, 
and symbolizing Creation, Preservation, and Destruc- 
tion. Then Brahm unfolds himself as Vishnu or 
Krishna and Siva ; a consistent monotheism, yet with 
the people soon degenerating into polytheism, as in 
Egypt and Chaldea. Then six different sects were 
evolved : worshippers of Siva, of Vishnu, of Surya or 
the Sun, the Ganapatyas, the Sactis, or worshippers of 
Bhavani or Parvati, and the Bhagavatis ; but all adored 
one Deity in the many names of Brahm, now as Varuna, 
now as Indra, now as Agni ; each invoked as Preserver, 
Creator, Destroyer. Vishnu, the Brahmans said, would 
destroy nature by the stamp of his foot (Coleman, p, 12). 
As the Arabs had a thousand names for lion, so the 
Hindus had a thousand names for Vishnu, and ascribed 
to him ten incarnations. In the first avatar he took 
the form of a Fish, which Sir William Jones thought 
referred to the Deluge of Noah. He would save the 
2* 



32 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

world, restore the sacred books, destroy giants, and 
punish the wicked. Daring the tenth incarnation the 
world itself would be dissolved. 

Iranian names of deity are found in India as in Egypt, 
different names for the same god at different seasons. 
Thus at night and in winter Siva is Vishnu ; at noon 
and in the evening lie is Siva ; in the east and in the 
morning he is Grama. The same color also is applied 
to Egyptian, Indian, and Greek gods. Krishna is the 
eighth incarnation of Vishnu, who becomes the shepherd 
Apollo of the Hindus, and the delight of their women. 
Very striking is the fact, as seen in plate 12 of Coleman, 
that the infant Krishna is represented as crowned with 
hooded snakes, a token of triumph, for Krishna is said 
to have killed a huge serpent which poisoned the River 
Jumna, having actually crushed its head ; and he was 
the wonder-worker of India, performing such and so 
many prodigies as cannot be recounted : blinding, dis- 
embowelling, and swallowing giants, alligators, and 
dragons, and eating them. He also becomes the love 
maker, who is paralleled only in the Song of Solomon, 
or in Solomon himself. Yet he was not altogether in- 
vulnerable, for when he crushed the head of the serpent, 
he was poisoned in the heel, and was cured only by 
drinking the milk of the goddess Parvati Durga, the 
Warrior, from w r hose eye the goddess Kalli sprang in 
complete armor, being born in battle ; so Maurice, 
" Indian Antiq.," vol. ii., p. 79. Thus we are reminded 
of the vulnerable heel of Achilles and of the full-grown 
Minerva. How easy was it for Aryans to expound or 
explode Hebrew types ! But nothing which may be said 
of Krishna, his labors and his frolics, his persecutions 
and his triumphs, now toiling like a Hercules, now 
revelling like a Bacchus, now regnant and glorious as 



OF A REDEEMER. 33 

Apollo performing wonders, can equal the works of 
Him who stilled the waves of Genesareth, who restored 
brother Lazarus, who Himself rose again from the dead ! 
All pagan avatars have failed in this, and in the grand 
test of the perpetual love and admiration of mankind. 
They had no prophets and heralds who prepared their 
advent, and after death they had no resurrection. In 
all which our Lord Jesus Christ stands supreme and 
unapproachable. He came to destroy the works and 
the power of Satan ; they to struggle for a while against 
him, and then let him dominate the earth, spirits of 
evil becoming more oppugnant and destructive to men, 
and overmastering the Brahman and the Buddhist, the 
Parsee and the Coptic priest. 

A touching legend, and one of the most significant of 
India, may properly close our collocation of similitudes. 

The Brahman Euru was affianced to the beautiful and 
accomplished Pramadvara, but on the eve of their in- 
tended marriage she was bitten by a serpent of deadly 
venom. In her terrible agonies her Brahman lover was 
eloquent in his bitter grief ; he earnestly proclaimed 
her gentleness and perfections, and devoutly prayed 
that Pramadvara might be given back to him fully re- 
stored to health. His prayer was answered, but on con- 
dition that he for her sake would sacrifice one half of 
the life otherwise allotted to him. He agreed to the 
terms and won his bride. But the Brahman had sacri- 
ficed half his life on earth. It surely taught important 
lessons, and among them was salvation by sacrifice, yea, 
in spite of his theory, salvation by substitution. Here 
was no victory over the serpent, but the law of redemp- 
tion is taught to one who does not believe it in theory, 
while he accepts it in order to possess Pramadvara. 
Thus, beneath manifold contradictions of his system 



34 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

there was revealed to the pagan a promise of better 
things, or at least some faint whispers of a brighter 
dawn for man. By purity, by prayers, by sacrifice, by 
self-subdual, the Hebrew and Assyrian, Egyptian and 
Greek, Iranian and Indian, might overcome the evil 
within him and the evil one, and so obtain the favor of 
his God. Not even the King could attain that without 
such helps. He might be the Divine representative to 
the people, yet he must seek the Divine aid and bless- 
ing. Sacrifice of some kind was necessary to atone or 
compensate for sin. Devoutly offered, with penitence 
and submission, who can doubt its acceptability to God — 
acceptable in priest, prince, or peasant ? Surely these 
"unconscious prophecies,' 7 intimations and echoes of 
the true, though but dimly understood, were significant. 
Not the groans of ghosts, nor sighs of spirits of the 
tombs, not mutterings of grave mounds, but the echoes 
and adumbrations of Eden, they are the longings and 
whisperings of mankind of the coming One who would 
crush the serpent and deliver man from his thraldom 
and longer deceiving of the nations. 

Naturally enough, this expectation would be mis- 
understood and misapplied by Roman writers. Thus 
Tacitus (" History/' v. 13) says : " By many the opin- 
ion was held, derived from the ancient writings of the 
priests, which was then about to be realized, that the 
East would become dominant, and [leaders] proceeding 
from Judea would take the government of affairs. 
These ambiguities were declared of Vespasian and 
Titus." Suetonius also speaks of an " ancient and 
permanent belief which had spread over the whole 
East," indicating knowledge and expectation of a Re- 
deemer (ad Vespasian, 4). Virgil suggests its applica- 
tion to Augustus. Like the legends of Sosiosh and the 



OF A REDEEMER. 35 

incarnations of Vishnu, they probably arose from the 
promise made in Eden. Indeed, " Krishna was the 
heart's protest against the negations of Brahmanism." 
Even Porphyry admits that something more was wanted 
for emancipating men's souls than philosophy had yet 
discovered (Augustine, De Civ. Dei, x., 32). And Druids 
had taught redemption of one life by another. Hence 
their sacrifice of human victims, especially criminals, in 
certain cases of sickness, to insure victory in battle, etc. 
So during many ages the great preparation was going 
on for One who should satisfy the hope of the world. 
We may see it even in Hercules when he vanquished the 
hydra-headed monster ; in the Siegfried of the Germans, 
as well as in Merodach and Krishna and Horus. But 
under various names, mythical here and there, are latent 
ideas of the same truth descending from a remote age, 
and telling of a Heaven-promised Eedemption by One 
who was to come, His conquests and His triumphs ; 
now to Adam in Eden ; now to Babylonians of Bel over 
Tiamat ; now to Egyptians of the serpent-victories of 
Horus and the defeats of Typho ; now to Persians of 
Sosiosh and the Victorious One who drove Satan in ser- 
pent form out of heaven ; now to Hindus of the Avatar 
who trampled on dragons and scorpions and crushed 
the serpent of Jumna, whose open jaws reached from 
earth to the clouds and were terrible to behold ; and 
they suggested to all Fire -worshippers that the sacred 
flame was acceptable to God for the symbolic cleansing 
from sin in Persian, Hindu, Greek, Eoman, Briton, 
Phoenician, and Israelite. 

USE OF FIRE Itf HEBREW WORSHIP. 

Consider : an altar of Incense and of perpetual Fire 
were of Mosaic -appointment. Ancient traditions of 



36 LEGENDS AND EXPECTATIONS 

the Jews tell us that the Are which came out from 
before the Lord (Lev. 9 : 24) was sacred, coming from 
Jehovah Himself, and was kept ever burning until the 
destruction of the temple by the Babylonians, having 
been renewed, at the Dedication, when fire again " came 
down from heaven and consumed the sacrifices." (See 
the " Speaker's Commentary/ ' ad loo.) When God ap- 
peared to Moses in the Bush, it was in a Flame of Fire ; 
when He led Israel through the wilderness, it was a Pillar 
of Fire which guided them by day ; on special occasions 
His glory appeared to them like devouring Fire ; sins 
of ignorance and of trespass were atoned for by confes- 
sion and burnt offerings ; sacrifices burned on the altar 
typified the cleansing of the priests ; a calf, a ram, a 
goatling, were slain and burned as sin offerings ; the fat 
of a bullock and a ram were consumed by fire coming 
out from the Lord upon the altar. Offering strange 
fire caused the death of Nadab and Abihu (Lev. 10). 
Of the two goats for a sin offering, one was let go and 
the other with a bullock was burned to ashes (Lev. 16 : 
22, 25 ,27). If the fire of the Lord sanctified, it also con- 
sumed (JSTum. chs. 11, 15, 16). To procure the Divine 
blessing for Barak, Balaam sacrificed burnt offerings 
(Num. 22). The mountain burned with fire when the 
Law was given at Sinai, and Jehovah is called a con- 
suming Fire (Deufc. 4 : 11-15, 24 ; 9 : 15 ; Ex. 19 : 18. 
The test of Elijah's sacrifice was fire from the Lord, 
which consumed it (1 Kings 18 : 38). 

Fire, moreover, was an accompaniment in the morn- 
ing and evening oblations both of the tabernacle and 
the temple worship. Upon the altar it was to be kept 
ever burning, and not to go out (Lev. 6 : 9, 12, 13). 
Once and again the Angel of the Lord appeared in a 
flame of fire. By a more than poetic fancy the Psalm- 



OF A REDEEMER. 37 

ist exclaimed, Thou makest a flaming fire Thy ministers ; 
and the prophet compared Him to a refiner's fire, and 
predicted the healing power of the rising Sun of Kight- 
eousness, meaning the Lord (Ps. 104 : 4 ; Mai. 3:2; 
4 : 2). St. John beheld Him in vision as having eyes 
like a flame of fire, even when on His head were many 
crowns (Rev. 1 : 14 ; 2 : 18 ; 19 : 12). To signify the 
energy and sanctifying unction of the Holy Ghost, He 
appeared unto the assembled Church at Pentecost in 
tongues as of fire (Acts 2:3). Thus we find that Fire 
and Incense, the serpent and sacrifice of animals were 
common alike to all the great families of Noah, not only 
for purposes of cleansing and procuring blessings, but 
as referring to a coming Saviour, and as symbolizing 
Him at the descent of the Holy Ghost. Perhaps as the 
representative of solar influence the serpent was wor- 
shipped at an early period ; his conquest was portrayed 
by St. John, indicating the triumph of the Christian 
Church. He who was lifted up on the cross would draw 
all men unto Him. And why not ? Semite Babylo- 
nians, Assyrians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians, Hamite 
Babylonians and Mizraim, Japhite Persians, Hindus 
and Greeks, Romans and Britons, testify to the expecta- 
tions of universal mankind as evidencing God in Media- 
torial Salvation, being adumbrations of Him who, in 
the fulness of the ages, crushed the head of the serpent, 
and was bruised in the heel for the crushing. Indian 
art graphically portrays both the crushing and the 
bruising. (See figure on the cover of this book.) 



II. 



THE FIRST SABBATH AND PRIMITIVE 

WORSHIP. 

The weekly day of rest is the salvation of our personality from 
enslavement in material toil. On the seventh day man is free to 
lift himself erect to the full stature of his manhood, to expand the 
loftier elements of his being, to reassert his freedom, and realize 
his superiority over the mechanical, the secular, and the earthly 
(Professor W. G. Elmslie). 

On the seventh day God ended His work which He had made ; 
and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which he had 
made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it (Gen. 
2 :2, 3). 

This resting and blessing are significant. The Creator is repre- 
sented anthropomorphically, as though He and the celestials 
joined with man in sanctifying the day and in worship. After 
creative work the Divine Being seeks spiritual rest and refresh- 
ment. Our Lord is said to have perceived that virtue had gone 
out of Him. On the mountain, by the seaside, in the Temple, 
Jesus sought to recuperate His spiritual powers. Herein the 
Father and the Son set man an eternal example. Here are our 
earliest and highest authority for Sabbath and worship. Though 
not in mandatory form, it is quite emphatic, and of perpetual 
obligation. The day is to be sanctified, God honored, the soul 
refreshed. 

Very early it was known that God needed no praise 
from His children ; " neither man's work nor His own 
gifts/' says Milton. Yet he requires recognition. Not 
to tell Him how great He is, but extolling Him for His 



PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 39 

goodness, praising Him for His mercies, and commun- 
ing with Him in order to become spiritually like Him, 
the human soul soaring to the Divine Soul — this was 
the purpose of the First Sabbath and of primitive wor- 
ship. It was to lift man heavenward, and to preserve 
his spirituality. We also read that then the morning 
stars sang together, and. all the sons or angels of God 
shouted for joy (Job 38 : 7). So in the second century 
of Adamic time, Seth and others called upon the name 
of Jahveh, and devoutly called themselves by His name, 
and worshipped Him in public assemblies. Clearly 
this was a free act, not by compulsion, but by Divine 
intimation ; not by command, but by love, which was 
prompted by echoes from Eden. Some, however, soon 
forgot their duty and spiritual privileges. Cain was 
self-centred, envious, and became a fratricide. Neglect 
of God grew fast among men. Yet observance of the 
Eest-day and its sanctification preserved among them the 
idea of God and of His worship. Enoch lived a holy 
life, and was early taken to be with God. Centuries 
passed, and Noah became a preacher of righteousness to 
his generation, but with small results, and the Flood 
drowned a world of sinners. Those saved peopled a 
new world, whose worship began at the altar which 
Noah built unto the Lord. 

The details are significant, and show that even then 
animals were classed as clean and unclean ; Noah took 
of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered 
burnt offerings on the altar. It was a sacrifice acceptable 
to Jahveh. According to the longer chronology now 
approved by many, that sacrifice was a thousand years 
before the Accadian Flood legends, the earliest of which 
Professor Sayce places about 2300 B.C. As the names 
of Adam, Noah, and other early patriarchs have not yet 



40 THE FIRST SABBATH 

been deciphered on Assyrian or Babylonian tablets, 
showing the independent origin of Bible names, we in- 
sist on the Biblical reading of the Divine name for the 
Oneness of Deity in the sacrifice after the Deluge, thus 
correcting the Accadian plurality and indicating how 
early polytheistic ideas arose, but earlier still the Divine 
Unity was known. For " Jahveh smelled a sweet 
savor," or a " savor of rest," suggesting both the char- 
acter of the sacrifice and the day when it was offered. 
Jahveh then made a covenant with the saved man, and 
appointed a perpetual token thereof. Records of this 
deliverance, of the sacrifice, and even of Divine instruc- 
tion to man are found in Chaldea. The Sabbath was 
as strictly observed in ancient Babylonia as by Israelites 
in the days of Moses. That it was of high authority is 
apparent. Man would not impose such restrictions 
upon himself. Evidence is wanting that even in Baby- 
lonia the Sabbath was of priestly origin. Indeed, the 
Sabbath was before priests. It was a recognized duty 
to approach God every day with sacrifice, reverent 
prayer, and free-will offerings. (See " Chaldean Acct.," 
p. 78.) Before a hero, benefactor, or any tomb service 
was the Sabbath-sacriGce of Noah, and the Sabbath- 
sacrifice of old Accadians. A half millennium before 
Moses they had formulated a Saints' Calendar and a 
Liturgy for daily worship. Chaldean bricks give more 
detailed accounts of how to observe the Sabbath and 
worship God than our Genesis. Moses said : " Remem- 
ber that thou keep holy the Sabbath day," and all pre- 
vious national histories tell how men had kept it. Pro- 
fessors Sayce, Proctor, and Rawlinson, and departed 
Assyriologists like G. Smith and F. Lenormant, agree 
in their testimony that the earliest records of Babylon 
and Egypt certify to a Sabbath-day rest and worship in 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 41 

those countries. In old Accacl the observance was much 
like that prescribed in Exodus, but Moses did not get 
his idea from the Accadians, who, indeed, had ceased to 
be a nation when he legislated. If, as Proctor holds, he 
adopted the Egyptian Sabbath, that only strengthens 
the fact of its known observance. Its obligation must 
have been early conceded, for no king would impose 
upon himself the restrictions found in a Babylonian 
Sabbath. The Accadians read a lesson of Sabbath ob- 
servance to modern legislators and generals, who often 
fight their fiercest battles on Sundays. On the Nile, 
between the Eivers, and in Palestine, its observance 
runs back to the very earliest ages of mankind. We 
can explain this universality only by regarding it as a 
Divine Institution, and that men everywhere so re- 
garded it. The descendants of those saved from the 
Deluge settled Egypt, peopled Babylonia, colonized 
Assyria and Phoenicia : and they all observed a Sab- 
bath. A thousand years before Moses, Nimrod built a 
temple to his God, whom he worshipped with prayer 
and sacrifices.. But for long ages the world had to 
depend on Greek and Latin accounts of those times, 
with which to supplement the Biblical records. It was 
content with the testimony of hearsay Herodotus touch- 
ing the offering of incense, of sheep and sucking young 
to the Deity in early ages. But modern discoveries 
show that one or two millenniums previously there had 
been pictured on cylinders and Chaldean bricks details 
and symbols of the primitive worship, of recurring Sab- 
baths and holy days for Divine services. 

The late G. Smith was one of the first to read and 
translate those inscriptions, and now, ten years later, Mr. 
Sayce, in the Hibbert Lectures for 1887, confirms the 
essential readings of the bricks ; that the seventh day 



42 THE FIRST SABBATH 

of the month Elul was Sabbath, dedicated to God, when 
a gazelle without blemish was offered, suggesting the 
clean animals of Noah. Similarly of the fourteenth, 
the nineteenth, the twenty-first, and the twenty-eighth 
days of the month, which were " Sabbaths dedicated to 
their gods ; when the shepherd of mighty nations must 
not eat cooked meats, nor change his clothes, nor put 
on white garments, nor offer sacrifice — which on Sab- 
baths was reserved for the priests — nor drive a chariot, 
nor issue royal decrees. Nor might the augur mutter, 
nor apply medicine, nor utter a curse. During the 
night the King should make a free-will offering and 
sacrifice to Merodach and Istar." Names which sug- 
gest that the legend is not of the earliest date, but yet 
ages before Moses, and telling of Sabbath and worship 
before the law was uttered at Sinai, and the Sabbath 
first made a holy day for Hebrews. Clearly this Sab- 
bath of Eden and of Noah was not of priestly origina- 
tion and ecclesiastical development, probably not of 
priestly origin when first observed by ancient Baby- 
lonians, and the sacrifice of a gazelle. Indeed, every 
day was provided with sacrifice and appointed worship. 
The ritual enjoined Daily Service. A recent discovery 
has induced some scholars to reconsider and lengthen 
the Babylonian chronology. But one thing remains 
certain, the Accadian Sabbath was not earlier than the 
Sabbath of Eden and of Noah. 

Moreover, from God's blessing the seventh day and 
the repeated mention of seven in Genesis, seven became 
a sacred number, not only with Hebrews, but also with 
Babylonians and Egyptians. Of clean beasts and of 
fowls Noah took them by sevens into the Ark. After 
seven days it rained ; he waited seven days, and yet 
another seven days. So "by sevens he disposed the 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 43 

measured vases/' the ritual of sacrifice (p. 102 of Part 
I.). There were also seven evil gods, seven evil demons, 
seven evil consuming spirits ; in heaven there were 
seven, and on earth seven. There were seven arch- 
angels. The throne bears of the goddess of Hades were 
seven. This was common alike to Accadians and 
Sumerians. The fact, also, of such a word as Sabbath 
is emphatic of there being such a day. To many it 
signified the Day of Rest. The ethnic relation of 
Babylonians, Hebrews, and Phoenicians, and the inter- 
course between Tyre, Zidon, and Egypt, emphasize the 
reasons for the Sabbath being known and observed by 
them. Mystic sevens were common to them all, and 
suggest the seventh-day Sabbath. So, too, the Saints' 
Calendar and the Book of the Dead, explaining how to 
serve God acceptably in Egypt and Chaldea, teach the 
same observance. 

The evolution of religion is from the simple and pure 
to the complex and corrupt, both in worship and theol- 
ogy. This is seen in the sacrifice of Noah and the sac- 
rifices to Moloch ; but the Bible, from Adam to Malachi, 
insists upon a pure offering to the covenant Jahveh- 
Elohim. By some name or names He was known 
among all the primitive races ; now as II or El, now as 
Jah or Ra, then as Bel, Baal, Urania, or in the feminine 
forms of Istar, Astarte, etc. Phoenicians, says Kenrick, 
did not originally worship with wanton rites. Their 
early temples had no visible representation of Deity, or 
only rude symbols of Him. The Scriptural denunciation 
of Zidonian worship was because of its cruelty and its 
later licentiousness (in Israel it was an intrusion and an 
apostasy). Baal was only another form of Bel, and 
Melkarth was its synonyme, and of high antiquity 
(" Phoenicia," p. 322). While it had many indications 



44 THE FIRST SABBATH 

of affinity with Jewish and Egyptian rites, the Phoeni- 
cian was not a spiritual religion. But the word sabatna 
suggests the Hebrew Sabbath, and that it was known 
by Phoenicians. Some known remains are a bronze 
laver almost as large as that of Solomon's temple ; also 
bowls, carved figures, trees and flowers, lions and bulls, 
festoons and hanging work, even cherubim find their 
copies or equivalents in Phoenician remains. (See 
Conders " Syrian Stone-Lore.") In art and religious 
usages this people resembled the Hebrews. And, like 
Egyptians, they represented the soul as seeking the 
" water of life," and regarded the tomb as an " eternal 
home." In She- mesh and Beth-she-mesh we have their 
" house or temple God." The ilecadian ark- builder, 
Tam-Zi, became the Phoenician Tammuz. 

So from the old Accadian Silik-Mulu Khi may be 
traced the Iranian Mithra, and the serpent Azi Dahak 
is said to be derived from Tiamat. Some Accadian 
deities resemble those of the Vedas. And the seven 
archangels of Mazdeism were probably derived from the 
seven planetary deities of the Babylonian firmament, 
noticed on pages 65 and 74 of Part I. Naturally enough 
the Persian record of the six days of creation resembles 
the Semitic account, which is not duplicated in the 
Vedas. This is all the more noticeable because of the 
frequent communication with India by Arabs, Babylo- 
nians, and Phoenicians in early times. Before the fleets 
of Solomon and Hiram traded with Ophir, Egyptian 
fleets sailed down the Bed Sea ; perhaps in the seven- 
teenth century B.C. And in the nineteenth dynasty the 
Greeks gained a naval victory over the Egyptian fleet. 
Thus at an early period these peoples were brought into 
somewhat intimate relations, and the Greeks borrowed 
many ideas of religion and history, of art and science, 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 45 

if not of philosophy, from the Nileland. Schrader, in 
his " Cuneiform Inscriptions/' p. 18, says that " a week 
of seven days was unknown to both these nations." 
Yet we have Biblical and monumental proof that the 
Egyptians were descended from Noah ; they knew the 
observances of their ancestors, but may have changed 
their own. Clearly Schrader was mistaken ? 

St. Paul is authority for the " religiousness' ' of 
Greeks, whose altar to the unnamed God might mean 
the Lord, whom he preached. And in Genesis 1 : 2 
the Egyptian might discover six members of his panthe- 
on — viz., the Earth, Chaos, Darkness, the Deep, the 
Spirit of God, and the Waters. Presumably he would 
not regard them as distinct Persons and equally Divine 
(Wilkinson, vol. iii., p. 274). Nor did Egyptian his- 
tory claim that the gods ever lived on earth ; though 
some works of imagination so represent and some his- 
torical lists seem to imply an earthly reign for them. 
The legend of the rule of Osiris is mythical. The sober 
history of Egypt even ridiculed the Greeks for pretend- 
ing to derive their origin from deities (Wilkinson, vol. 
i., pp. 11 and 28 ; vol. iii., pp. 92, 230, 305). More- 
over, sacrifices were offered to the Apis as to Osiris, 
whose Divine soul had descended into him, it was 
thought. But the animal as such was not adored, only 
the God dwelling in him for the time. So many regard 
statues and paintings of sacred persons to-day, and 
adore Him whom they represent, not the material ob- 
jects which they see. Wilkinson on this matter fully 
corrects opposing views. He tells us that Osiris and 
Isis had each a variety of names ; were called Myriony- 
mous, having ten thousand appellations. Osiris was 
the Beneficent Deity, the Bestower of all blessings 
in life and in Amenti ; while Isis was the Protector 



46 THE FIRST SABBATH 

and Defender, even rescuing Typho from punish- 
ment. 

Indeed some deities were erased from the statues and 
others substituted in their stead. It was not till the 
eighteenth dynasty that the god of war, Amenophis, 
was evolved or introduced into Egypt. The people 
were peace-loving, as is usual with agriculturists. On 
the contrary, the early sphinxes belong to the fourth 
dynasty, representing the power and authority of deity 
and royalty ; if not regarded as Divine, they were Divine 
symbols. So of other sacred objects — birds and animals. 
But it should be remembered that there is a vast differ- 
ence between being held as sacred and being ranked as 
a god in Egypt. The peach, the vine, pomegranate, acan- 
thus, sycamore, fig, tamarisk, lotus, garlic, leek, onion, 
ivy, palm-branch, papyrus, and some other fruits and 
plants were held as sacred to the gods, but not as gods. 

This is also seen in the treatment of sacred animals 
by Egyptians. To propitiate and obtain favors from 
them, they fed them even delicately, they fattened and 
flattered them, they entreated them and sang to them ; 
but if that did not procure what they sought, they 
threatened them, put them in secluded places, shut 
them up in the dark, as children do refractory dolls, 
and then if still delinquent, the animal was put to death 
and quickly buried out of sight (vol. iii., p. 247). And 
the government would favor such treatment. For the 
veneration of the crocodile, which was also an emblem 
of Typho, gave assurance that repair of the canals would 
not be neglected. The canals and ditches must be kept 
clean and in repair to insure health, prosperity, and 
fruitfulness. If you add the element of religious duty, 
it would only tend to secure performance of natural 
obligation to obtain the fruits of the earth. 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 47 

But, as Porphyry suggests, the Egyptians may have 
really thought that the lower animals, as well as man, 
were endued with Divine qualities, and that a spiritual 
essence pervaded all living beings ; and the notion of 
metempsychosis would also favor it. They could not 
know who dwelt in such animals, perhaps the spirit of 
some ancestor undergoing transmigration by the judg- 
ment of Osiris. Therefore treat them with considera- 
tion. To cherish and supplicate them would secure the 
favors desired, or else the disappointment would cause 
them to be disowned. If animal adoration was derived 
from worship of the serpent, through misunderstanding 
of the teachings of Eden, there was all the more reason 
for discarding a creature who might harm, if he would 
not or could not bless. 

But touching anthropomorphic gods, the human 
form was that always assumed by the Deity in His vari- 
ous appearances to men. It also represented the Divine 
intelligence, and possessed the Divine Spirit. The 
human form, therefore, was the best earthly symbol and 
representative of God, whose children men are. The 
feminine form meant fruitfulness. A Babylonian god- 
dess was little more than the shadow or double of the 
god ; thus Zarpanitu, wife of Merodach, to account for 
his son Nebo ; thus Anat, wife of Anu, to account for 
Istar, who occupies a unique position as a goddess who 
was not a wife, but an independent deity, who was seen 
in the evening star. She was Astarte in Phoenicia, as 
Bel was Baal. Assur had no peer in Assyria, nor till 
later ages was a wife, JSTin-lil, assigned him. Supreme 
in heaven and in earth, says Sayce, u Assur in Assyria 
suggests Jahveh in Israel, while the later gods of Baby- 
lonia were like the local saints of Catholic Europe, not 
like the hierarchy of Olympus, ruled by the nod of Zeus." 
3 



48 THE FIRST SABBATH 

Old Bel was before and chief of all, not alone, but 
supreme in the pantheon. Drop the B in Bel and we 
have the El of Israel and Phoenicia, while B makes him 
the House God, Beth-El. Professor Sayce is clear in 
his idea that early Semitic peoples had but one God. 
They were monotheists, who sought to impart their 
theology to all with whom they dwelt (Hibbert Lectures, 
p. 207). In Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Palestine, 
Persia, India, Greece, and Rome there was but one chief 
Deity, variously named. He was El, II, Ea, Jah, 
Jahyeh, Zeus, Jupiter, the Heaven God, Urania or 
Varuna. So in Christian lands to-day He is God, the 
Lord, our Father, the Most High, the Holy One, all 
names of the Supreme whom we worship and obey, rever- 
ence and love, the equal in number of appellations with 
the Deity of Chaldea. It was a point considered for 
years in China by what name the missionaries should 
designate the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Accadians said Ea or Bel, and Sumerians, Merodach, 
and Phoenicians, Baal or Melkarth, all meaning the One 
Supreme Being. The Sun-god of Sippara, the Moon- 
god of Ur, was by name older than Merodach of Baby- 
lon. But older yet was Bel, whose worship spread 
around from Nipur and struggled for supremacy. It 
did not, however, find popular favor, and was probably 
opposed by the priests. (Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 
80-88.) The fourth creation tablet names Mul-lil, Ea, 
and Bel as guardians of the sky ; and Bel- Merodach as 
the destroyer of Tiamat by a sort of wind-blast hurled 
into her stomach, a translation hardly differing in sense 
from the whirling thunderbolt of pages 86 and 87, Part. 
I., and illustrating their accuracy. Indeed, Mr. Sayce 
corroborates our former conclusion as to Babylonian 
theology, while Professor G. Maspero, in " Egyptian 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 49 

Archaeology/ ' sustains our use of Sir G. Wilkinson, 
Kenrick, etc. Thus Maspero tells us that an Egyptian 
temple must contain one inner chamber, having neither 
statue nor emblem, but only a sacred bark or taber- 
nacle ; a single block of stone, which received on certain 
days the symbol of the local god, or a living animal, or 
the image of it, which was sacred to that god. This 
one chamber was a necessity in every temple, and was 
entered only by Pharaoh and the priests. The sanc- 
tuary and its immediate surroundings were closed against 
the people ; but they had access to the fa§ades, courts, 
etc., where* they might admire and worship as devoutly 
as they pleased. Egyptian temples contained neither 
sculptured images, inscriptions, nor symbols. The 
temple of the Sphinx is bare. Offerings of fruits in 
worship are of an early date. A Mediator appears in 
the person of the son of Osiris. The king enters the 
temple and speaks face to face with the god he wor- 
ships. The shrines were little chapels of painted wood 
or stone, in which the spirit of the deity was supposed 
at all times to dwell, and which contained his image. 
This was as early as Seti I. Moreover, the chapel of 
the tombs was always separate from the tombs (pp. 63- 
105). This suggests that the god so worshipped was 
not the ghost of the departed, but rather that the de- 
parted were invoked to assist in the worship : recalling 
All-Saints' Day among those Christians who observe it. 
The dead, even Pharaohs, were not deified, nor gener- 
ally honored with apotheosis. Intelligent Egyptians 
worshipped God alone, yet by symbols. It is doubtful 
if the Egyptians really represented under any form 
their idea of the Deity. With them, as with the Jews, 
the Divine name was regarded with such profound re- 
spect as never to be uttered. He was the Being of 



50 THE FIRST SABBATH 

Beings, " who was, and is, and will be," without repre- 
sentative. Osiris, indeed, was the nearest approach to 
the Supreme, yet his realm was that of disembodied 
souls, being their Judge, and the Avatar, of very high 
rank, but not the Supreme Deity in Unity. Such a 
Being is not represented on the sculptures, but only the 
qualities and attributes belonging to Him. Men in 
early times believed in an omnipotent and all- wise God. 

Dr. Bigg, in the Bampton Lectures for 1886, has pre- 
sented the earnest efforts of pagan philosophers to re- 
vive and correct the old pagan theology ; how the 
second Christian century saw a revived Mithraism in 
which that Deity was made the Eedeemer and Mediator 
between God and man ; how Atonement was seen in 
the blood of the slain bull connected with Mithraic wor- 
ship, which was said to regenerate for eternity. The 
Messiah and Saviour of men might be seen here and 
there, especially in Zarathustra's son, in Pythagoras, 
and in Apollonius, by whom a glorious end should be 
put to the long strife between good and evil (pp. 237- 
242). And the Emperor Julian in the fourth century 
exerted himself to the utmost to restore pagan theology, 
pagan worship, and pagan literature to their former 
position among the people. Such reformation implied 
something that needed reform, for a lapse had occurred. 
Men had wandered far from the primitive worship. 

Originally there was a weekly observance of the Eest- 
day. In Egypt and between the Eivers a week of seven 
days was long known. It was the religious day. Pro- 
fessor Proctor is positive that Sabbath observance was 
the original practice of all Semitic peoples. Indeed, 
his assurance on this point surprises me. He claims 
that Moses derived his idea of enacting each seventh 
day as a day of rest from the Egyptians, who had 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 51 

taught the practice to the Jews, and that it would have 
increased the difficulties of his position to have omitted 
such a festival, while the time was not favorable to 
establish a new one. He manfully opposed Egyptian 
polytheism, but nevertheless adopted certain ceremonies 
and festivals which he incorporated into his legislation. 
We have historical evidence as to the non-Jewish origin 
of the observance of the seventh day. Philo, Josephus, 
Clement of Alexandria, etc., speak plainly of the week 
as not of Jewish origin, but common to all Oriental 
nations. (See " The Great Pyramid," pp. 248, 249.) 
The days of the week are named after the sun and six 
long-known planets of ancient times. " When Baby- 
lonian priests began to observe the stars, they did vast 
service to mankind and laid the basis of astronomy. 
They divided the circle into three hundred and sixty 
degrees, the day into twenty-four hours, and the week 
into seven days, naming them after the planets. On 
Babylonian clay tablets the Sabbath day is found among 
her religious institutions, a seventh-day called Sabbath, 
on which no work was to be done" (Franz Delitzsch). 
Add to this Professor Proctor's claim that the great 
pyramid at Gizeh was built by Cheops for astronomical 
purposes chiefly, and that a week of seven days was even 
then a measure of time in Egypt, and we have a three- 
fold source of evidence, strengthened by various con- 
siderations, that by Babylonians, Egyptians, and by 
Hebrew patriarchs the Sabbath was observed at a very 
early period for the worship of God, now with prayers 
and sacred hymns, now with sacrifice of animals and 
the fruits of the earth ; vegetables, figs, grapes, the hon- 
ored onion, incense to a large amount, and even oint- 
ment, were offered. In early Egypt religion entered 
into the daily life of the people as well as of the priests. 



52 THE FIRST SABBATH 

Besides the days sacred to God, what we call religious 
service attended upon all the great events of life from 
birth to burial, including them. Every day had its 
appropriate service. They observed fast days as well as 
feast days, the birth and death of a peasant's child and 
of a Pharaoh's. Every important undertaking, every 
marked favor, going to war and returning in triumph, 
were accompanied with prayers, sacrifices, and thanks- 
giving to God. So was the accession to the throne of a 
new king, who, if not already a priest, was enrolled a 
member of the priesthood. The images of Babylon and 
of Egypt, and the Ark of the Covenant, were borne by 
priests in a similar manner when removed. The conse- 
cration of persons and places separated for religious 
uses, anointing with oil, use of incense and the sacred 
fire, were common alike among each people who then 
represented mankind. It was the religiousness of 
Egyptians which caused them to regard their stay in 
this world as of short duration in comparison with the 
everlasting habitations awaiting them upon leaving the 
inns of life and the body of death. Their history shows 
that two millenniums before our era they had purer 
ideas of God, and how to worship Him, and prepare for 
the judgment of Amenti than prevailed in the days of 
Cleopatra. There was an evolution with the passage of 
ages, but it was into debasing superstitions, which 
Apepi in the seventeenth century vigorously opposed by 
a decree forbidding the worship of any God in Thebes 
except Ra-Amon, the One Supreme. In Egypt and 
between the Eivers there were occasional wars for relig- 
ion, from Nimrod to the king who knew not Joseph. 
And the Semitics were ever on the side of the invisible 
and eternal Being whom they approached with prayer, 
sacrifice, and thanksgiving. Yet from an early period 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 53 

there were those who made the heavenly bodies to sym- 
bolize Him, and which were adored on certain days of 
the month named after the planets. Later on the 
Eternal Being was worshipped ia His attributes and by 
material emblems and as dwelling in animals. 

According to an inscription now in the British Muse- 
um, Sargon of Accad dedicated a temple to the Sun- 
god at Sippara ; at Nipur he restored the Temple of 
Bel, and another to Beltis, wife of Bel, while at Zir- 
ghulla he built a temple to Sar-ili, King of the gods ; 
and in each thought himself a consistent monotheist. 

Whatever the date of these temples, they imply wor- 
ship and days for sacrifice. The men who erected and 
adorned them did it in honor of the God whom they 
worshipped. So had Noah offered his sacrifice of 
thanksgiving ; and earlier still men had observed the 
Sabbath of Eden. From the mountain of Nizir and 
the plain of Shinar Sabbath observance went to Egypt, 
and its priests enjoined rest on that day because it was 
a duty of religion, and not only because it was consid- 
ered unlucky to work on that day. The unluckiness 
arose from its being God's day, whereon man must not 
do his own work nor seek his own pleasure. Daily at 
sunrise and at sunset Babylonian and Egyptian priests 
chanted hymns to the Deity, and on special festivals to 
the national God. On New Year's night the Chaldean 
priest repeated a hymn of fourteen lines, alternately in 
Accadian and Semitic, having no connection between 
them, but which had come to them as a legacy of the 
past. The Semitic lines were to Bel-Merodach, the 
Accadian to " a god of the sanctuary" and " lord of 
the world " (Hibbert Lectures, 1887, pp. 80, 340). Some 
hymns of the Accadian liturgy were translations from 
the Semitic tongue, for the two peoples were then united 



54 THE FIliST SABBATH 

under one ruler, and so they made joint use of prayers 
and litanies. As early as Sargon of Accad there was a 
litany which shows Semitic supremacy at that time. 
Already temples had been erected to Anu. That of 
Belus was the earliest known. 

Such progress had been made by ancient Babylonians 
in astronomy that they very early learned to intercalate 
a whole month, called Elul, into their year of three hun- 
dred and sixty days ; in some years, two such Eluls, 
every day of which was provided with religious service 
and sacrifice. The nineteenth day as well as each sev- 
enth day was a Sabbath of rest and worship. Some 
Accadian lines of this ritual Professor Sayce confesses 
himself unable to translate, and calls them " an heir- 
loom possibly from pre- Semitic days" (pp. 77-80), 
which is, of course, before the Deluge. They may have 
been preserved with other records at Sippara, or in the 
Ark by Noah, when seven was already considered a 
sacred number, and animals were classed as clean and 
unclean, when the flesh of a pig was avoided ; yet at 
an early date M. Maspero and Professor Sayce find evi- 
dence that ' ; the flesh of a man, the front breast of a 
man," were eaten (p. 83) ! Which may have been only 
a peculiar way of speaking of " Mother's Milk." And 
Professor Sayce is careful to shield Semitics from shar- 
ing in such cannibalism (p. 84). The Phoenician rite 
of offering children to Moloch did not imply sacrificing 
them, but only presenting them to lord Baal, the god 
of light and life ; the usual sacrifices being of oxen, 
sheep, and gazelles, with offerings of meal and wine, 
hymns, prayers, and invocations. We shrink from dog- 
matism on this early Accadian period, when women 
were especially honored and Istar reigned-— two points 
to be remembered in affirming the custom of human 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 55 

sacrifices. Still, the case of Isaac may have been created 
to teach that in Palestine and elsewhere such victims 
were not acceptable to God, but rather an abomination. 
And via Phoenicia and Damascus the Divine aversion 
to them might easily be carried to Accad in the twen- 
tieth century B.C. 

Moreover, other changes were effected in Divine offices 
and names for Deity. Mul-lil, from being lord of the 
world of departed spirits, became Bel or Baal, " a sud- 
den change, seemingly, not a development" (p. 347). 
Gods of good had long struggled with spirits of evil, 
which we see in Egypt and Persia as well as in the 
Accad of Sargon, when Ea, Samas, and Merodach desig- 
nate the same Deity, and when Merodach was called Bel 
in Babylon. His contest with Tiamat was an early 
solution by the dwellers between the Eivers of the prob- 
lem of the origin of evil. Hence arose prayers and in- 
cantations to be delivered from all demoniac influences. 
Hence prayers and confessions to obtain forgiveness for 
sins of thought as well as of deed. Hence the frequent 
supplications, u God, forgive my sins ! goddess, 
forgive my sins ! As a mother forgives an erring child, 
so Babylonians desired to be forgiven" (pp. 350-52). 
But neither here nor in the early records of Chaldea, 
which have survived to us, can Professor Sayce find any 
traces of ancestor worship. The ghost world of Nipur 
lay beneath the earth in the realm of Queen Allat. And 
Mul-lil of Accad became the Semitic Bel before the 
Deluge tablets were inscribed, which give his later 
name. He reigned a supreme God, if not alone. Istar 
was the Lady Nana of Accad, and was known as Nana at 
Erech to the latest times. Hymns were sung to her 
which set forth her greatness and renown. She was 
also called Tillili, Dav-kina, the bride of Tammuz, her 
3* 



56 THE FIRST SABBATH 

shepherd and lord ; all were names of the same divinity. 
Naturally enough, Tammuz, her bridegroom, was not of 
Semitic origin ; Istar and Tammuz were of Accad. In 
honor and supremacy were Anu, Ea, and Bel of Baby- 
lon, called Assur in the northern empire. So numerous 
are the hymns and prayers addressed to them, that 
Lenormant styled them the " Chaldean Kig-Veda." 
But as copies of originals are mixed with later produc- 
tions, as in the court of Sargon L, Semitic and Acca- 
dian scribes vied with one another in compiling new 
texts and in making old ones accessible to Semitic 
learners ; as under Assur-bani-pal, in the seventh cen- 
tury B.C., copyists may have passed later compositions 
for earlier ones and interpolated some others to suit 
themselves, no modern scholar can be always sure of his 
text, nor of the true meaning to be put upon it, till 
about 650 B.C. An artificial dialect sprang up> based 
on the Semitic, having Accadian words and phrases 
blended with it, which reacted on the Accadian, which 
thus became mixed with Semitic words. So of religion, 
Accadian ideas were blended with Semitic, which also 
intertwined with Accadian beliefs. But the theology 
of northern Babylonia was more purely Semitic than 
the southern. Yet Narum-Sin, the son and successor 
of Sargon I., was, according to the adjunct " Sin," 
deified ; so a cylinder found by Di Cesnola in the treas- 
ure vaults of a Kimnan temple suggests. Its date is 
not given, but is certainly much later than 3750 B.C. 
The " Sin," like " Ka" in Sekeneii, expresses kingship 
by Divine permission. The Semitics were monotheists 
long ere this. And Sargon I. established their suprem- 
acy in Babylonia and was the lawgiver of its legends. 
Not only did ancient Babylonians and Assyrians observe 
the Sabbath, but its institution runs back of the Acca- 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 57 

dian era ! It was the u Kest-day, a Day of Rest for the 
heart/' and like the Hebrew Sabbath, was observed 
every seventh day. The newfound data would make 
it before 4000 B.C. (Sayce's " Hibbert Lectures/' pp. 
30-36, 76, 77). Moreover, Assyrians were similar to 
the Semitics of Babylon in language, religion, and law, 
with Assur for the Supreme God, without a rival ; 
and the Semitic forms of religion were adopted by 
ancient Phoenicians. ' ' It was typically Semitic. " Bel- 
Merodach became Baal, Melkarth, and Moloch, of whom 
the sun, fire, and the planets were visible symbols. 
Among them all a seventh- day Sabbath was early ob- 
served for rest and worship. It is also noteworthy that 
in old Jebusite Jerusalem the title for the Supreme God 
was Dod or Dodo. So in Isaiah 5 : 1 we read Dod-i for 
" my beloved." Hence also the name David ; so Sayce, 
p. 57 ; and he says the temple of Merodach differed 
from all other Babylonian temples by being oriented at 
the side, while others are oriented at the corners. With- 
in it bore a striking likeness to the temple of Solomon, 
with a M holy of holies" curtained off from profane 
gaze. Originally built and dedicated to Belus, it was 
repaired and embellished by Nebuchadnezzar, and a 
golden image symbolized Merodach, whom he reverently 
took by the hand when recounting his prowess and suc- 
cesses. All his greatness and his triumphs had come to 
him through the favor and blessing of his God, whom 
he extolled and adored. Nebuchadnezzar and Darius 
each issued a decree that every people and nation of 
their dominion should acknowledge the God of the 
Hebrews, for He is the living God, and steadfast forever 
(Dan. 3 : 29 ; 6 : 26). And an Egyptian papyrus of 
twelve hundred years before their day tells us that 
Apepi, the contemporary of Joseph, proclaimed that 



58 THE FIRST SABBATH 

One God was to be worshipped throughout Egypt. He 
also sent to Sekenen, the tributary King of Thebes, to 
allow no other worship, so that the monotheism thus 
enjoined was exclusive. For there was One only God 
whom men ought to worship. He was then called Ra- 
Amon, who was also acknowledged at Babylon ; a name 
derived from the original Ka-Ra, or the gate of Ra, of 
which Babil was the Semitic translation, denoting the 
Supreme God, or " King of the gods," as we find Sar- 
ili to mean. At Zerghul a temple was dedicated to him 
by Urukh, said to be the earliest of monumental kings 
(" Records of the Past," vol. iii., pp. 9, 10 ; vol. viii., 
p. 3). Thus Ra was the Supreme God, however vari- 
ously designated. As Professor Rawlinson says : " The 
Unity of the Divine nature was not gradually worked 
out by sages and philosophers, but seems to have under- 
lain religion from the very first. And the earliest 
hymns are as monotheistic as the latest. It is polytheism 
that grows and is elaborated, not monotheism. " Ra 
and His worship are found in Babylon and in Egypt at 
an early date. The manifesto of the Hyksos King 
Apepi to Ra-Sekenen is itself a refutation of the evolu- 
tion of religion. Very noteworthy is the prefix Ra to 
Sekenen 's name, simply meaning " by Divine permis- 
sion," or " by God's grace," King of Thebes, not a 
God-King at all. Thebes was then tributary to Apepi, 
who reigned at Memphis and Avaris, whence he issued 
his decree enacting the worship of One only God, who 
seems never to have been represented by material sym- 
bols. Ra, indeed, might be seen in Osiris and his sym- 
bol, and so receive the homage of men, but He was the 
concealed God whom intelligent Egyptians worshipped 
with the highest titles of honor and supremacy. " The 
designation of other deities had better be that of genii, 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 5 ( J 

corresponding to the angels of the Bible." Since the 
Greeks very early had dealings with Egyptians and 
Asiatics, we may understand why Sophocles could sing : 

" There is in truth but Oue, One only God, 
AVho made both heaven and long-extended-earth ;" 

And Aratus sang : 

4 * Men worship Him, the First, the Last, 

Their Father, Wonderful, their help and shield." 

In the nineteenth dynasty the era of the Exodus, the 
Greeks had direct intercourse with Egypt, and then in 
hostile combination with Phoenicians, Cyprians, etc., 
who are named in the papyri, they invaded the Nileland, 
and became acquainted with its philosophy and religion 
(" Kecords of the Past," vol. iv., pp. 39-48). And vol. 
2, p. 8, says that King Una, of the sixth dynasty, had his 
priests, north and south, truly devoted to Osiris, the 
name of the Heaven- God at that time. In the twelfth 
dynasty, about the era of Abraham, King Usertesen was 
ruler of the three regions — viz., Upper, Lower, and 
Middle Egypt, when Ea-Amon was the name of the One 
God without a peer, and the dead were carried in the 
boat of Ea (" Eecords of the Past," vol. ii., p. 134). 
As before stated, the Hyksos Apepi received the homage 
of the whole land, but precipitated a revolt because he 
refused to tolerate the worship of any other God than 
Ea-Amon. He would not suffer Sekenen to assent that 
the Thebans should serve any of the gods of the land 
except Ea-Amon, the King of the gods (" Eecords of 
the Past," vol. viii., p. 3). Whatever polytheism this 
may disclose, it also discloses a stubborn monotheism, 
which would risk the chances of war rather than ac- 



GO THE FIRST SABBATH 

knowledge more than one God. Apepi and Ra-Sekenen 
of the seventeenth century B.C. confute the theory of 
ecclesiastical evolution. The Moabite stone contains 
the compound Ashtar-Chemosh to designate a single 
deity. And in times of drought, we are told, the 
ancient Phoenicians lifted their hands heavenward to 
El, the only God and Lord of heaven. So by various 
other names they worshipped Baal-Samin, which means 
Bel — that is, El, the Lord of Heaven, who ruled the 
world and men ; hence their worship of Him. So in 
Chemosh-Ashtar, Pen-Baal, Shem-Baal, the goddess 
part seems to be merely different aspects of Baal, which 
no more militates against original monotheism than 
does the Christian Trinity against the monotheism of 
Christians. Influenced by commercial dealings with 
other peoples, East and West, they might adopt the 
names of their deities for their own, but according to 
Kenrick, " the Phoenicians were not idolaters in the 
sense of being image-worshippers. And. in the temple 
of Melkarth at Gades there was no material emblem of 
the god at all, except that of an ever-burning fire." 
Stones and pillars, supposed to possess a sort of mystic 
virtue, were set up before their temples, and sacrifices 
were offered to them. Phoenician worship consisted of 
prayer and praise, and sacrifice of animals, with liba- 
tions and incense in profusion, and they uttered pro- 
longed cries to importune the Deity, and practised self- 
mutilation, as in the grand tragedy at Carmel, the final 
test between Baal and the God of Elijah and Israel. 
That demonstrated that the covenant-Jehovah and His 
worship, as prescribed by Moses, must not be superseded 
by any other in Israel. It was apostasy so to do (Num. 
15 : 30 ; Deut. 17 : 12). But was the Mosaic legisla- 
tion obligatory upon other nations? 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 61 

Here I may notice a reviewer of the first part of my 
book, who, planting himself upon Kenan as authority, 
claims that monotheism did not become fixed in Israel 
till about the ninth century B.C. ! Surely, if the records 
of that century prove anything, it is that monotheism 
was then decadent, and in the latter part of the eighth 
century the Ten Tribes, for idolatry, were carried cap- 
tive to Assyria. Jerusalem also was punished for her 
ecclesiastical coquetry. In the ninth century occurred 
the famous test of Elijah with Jezebel's priests. Jehu 
was anointed to succeed Ahab ; Baal's priests were slain 
or exiled, and their queen dashed to pieces. Yet the 
idolatry of Jeroboam was maintained. There was, 
indeed, a brief revival of national prosperity, but from 
the time of the rival sanctuaries of Dan and Bethel to 
that of Jerusalem, Jahvism, which may properly desig- 
nate the monotheism of Israel, became more and more 
debased and decadent in that nation. It was seven 
hundred years earlier that Moses established Jahvism. 
It was confirmed under Joshua, as we read in ch. 22 of 
that book ; while under David and Solomon mono- 
theism was regnant. Kenan's eloquence cannot ex- 
scind historical facts. Never was " Jahveh a confused 
nebula" with intelligent Hebrews. Even those who 
dishonored Him did not forget Him, but sought to pro- 
mote and secure what seemed to be doubtful rights of 
sovereignty. (See 1 Kings 12.) Jahveh was not a 
"tribal evolution from spiritism." In allusion to the 
Persian winged-disc symbol of Ormuzd, He is called by 
Malachi " the Sun of Eighteousness. " EloMm, meaning 
spirits, do not meet Moses in mountain-passes, but the 
covenant Jahveh-Elohim thus manifests His glory (Ex. 
33 : 17-22 ; 24 : 8-11 ; also 1 Kings 19 : 9-14). In 
Isaiah 57 : 15 it is the Spirit of the Holy One that 



62 THE FIRST SABBATH 

dwells in the hearts of men. M. Kenan's historic gen- 
eralization cannot transform the essential basis of 
Hebrew literature. " The Ten Commandments will 
not budge" at his bidding, nor cease to proclaim that 
Jahveh-Elohim gave them. AVitnesses of Him are the 
sacred Ark and the Tabernacle service ; the Passover and 
other annual memorials ; the pillar of stones at the 
Jordan and at Shechem ; even the brazen serpent which 
Hezekiah destroyed ; the morning and evening sacri- 
fices, and the law of the king, which must have been 
given before Saul. Then there are silent references and 
vocal epochs which cannot be eliminated ; Noah and 
Nimrod, Abraham and Jacob, Moses and Jethro, 
Samuel and David, even Ahab and Jehu, as well as 
Elijah and Elisha, all emphasize for us the Jahvism of 
patriarchs and of Israel as before and above all else. 
Jahveh, indeed, has ever been known since He talked 
with Adam and Eve, and ever worshipped since the 
first Sabbath of Eden ; in the sacrifice of Noah ; in the 
temple of Belus ; by Semitic Babylonians ; in Egyptian 
temples, and by decree of Egyptian kings, of Nebuchad- 
nezzar and of Darius ; in Ra and his representative 
Osiris ; in Assur, Bel, and in El ; in Varuna, Indria, 
and Agni ; in Ormuzd and in Mithra ; in Zeus and in 
Jupiter ; wherever men have worshipped Him who made 
them, and who preserves them alive for the life ever- 
lasting, there and so far they worshipped God. The 
Creeds of Nicea and of St. Athanasius, of Westminster 
and of Heidelberg, may help or even hinder some to 
right views of Him, whom for short we call God our 
Creator, God our Saviour, God our Eather, who is Infi- 
nite and Eternal, who has Personality and self-volition, 
who is before all, and above all, and in all who love and 
adore Him. His praises have been sung now in psalms 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 63 

by heavenly choirs, now by hymns in temples on the 
Euphrates and on the Nile, now by Persian bards and 
by Indian poets, now by anointed kings, by prophets 
in royal raiment and in leathern girdles ; and wherever 
the soul has extolled the majesty, the power, and the 
love of God, there and so far it has acknowledged and 
worshipped Him. 

MATTERS AUTHENTICATED. 

Summarizing some established facts, we find that 
early Semitics were monotheists, not indifferent, but 
aggressive in having those with whom they came in 
contact conform to their religion. It was thus with the 
king who first unified the Babylonians under one gov- 
ernment. Accad, Nipur, Sippara, and ITr were fused 
together by similar means that at a later time consoli- 
dated the Assyrian Empire. Sargon of Agane was both 
soldier and statesman, a builder of temples and a col- 
lector of libraries. Sennacherib, one, two, or three 
thousand years later, was a warrior, who strengthened 
his government and extended monotheism by the force 
of arms, as Apepi had attempted in Egypt a millennium 
before him. " The struggle/' says Eanke, " was no 
less political than religious." Witness the quasi-relig- 
ious wars of Assur-bani-pal. Men fought and died 
for their religion on the borders of the Nile and the 
Euphrates near four thousand years ago. Their temples 
and capital cities have long lain in ruins, and their cen- 
tres of literary activity are lost to sight, but their liter- 
ature has been recovered from the debris of ages, and 
the Accadian tongue, which in the seventeenth century 
B.C. was dead as Latin in the Middle Ages, is now vocal 
with its accounts of Creation, of God, of Sabbath, and 
of Worship. Sargon's collections are said to be transla- 



04 THE FIRST SABBATH 

tions of Accadian originals, or based on Accadian texts, 
not the creations of poets and thinkers. He claimed 
sovereignty over the four nations of the world, but only 
his religion and his literature have survived. His son 
and successor was Naram-Sin, who was succeeded by a 
queen regnant, who was succeeded by Kammurabi of 
Elam, who ruled over Babylonia, and was the first who 
made Babylon the capital of the Empire, which position 
it held for more than a thousand years. He added to 
the library founded by Sargon, which library makes for 
the later date of Sargon, and which, after other enrich- 
ments, was for the most part removed to Assyria by 
Sennacherib, who conquered the city about 690 B.C. 
What he left there must have perished in the fire which 
raged for three days and nights ; it could not have 
escaped the grasp of Assur-bani-pal twenty years later. 
Hence the small hope of finding any literary remains in 
Babylon of an earlier date than Nebuchadnezzar, who 
largely rebuilt and adorned his capital with temples and 
palaces. The country was the battle-ground of the 
great nations of Asia, and its literature is largely to be 
collected among Assyrian remains, which contain copies 
of almost everything Babylonian in religion, in science, 
in art, and intellectual achievement. From hence 
western Semitics and western Aryans received much of 
their learning and civilization and religion. Thus the 
literature of old Accad lived again in Greece, but with 
a finer finish and a deeper philosophy, blended also with 
the treasures of Egypt. Hence what may be called the 
monotheistic polytheism of Greece and her complex 
theology/ Witness that of Anaxagoras and Thales. 

The Mount Nizir, upon which the Ark rested, is now 
located in ancient Assyria, and appreciation of deliver- 
ance by it from the Flood is said to have led to an early 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 65 

adoration of the " spirit of the mountain," and that a 
sort of "naturalistic spiritism' 7 was practised. Be it 
so. It only shows the gratitude men cherished for the 
direct sources of comfort and beneficence. Hence, too, 
veneration of the heavenly bodies and the powers of 
nature. But with this, and higher than this, men also 
worshipped in a deeper sense the Creator and Lord of 
all. Every day it was commanded to approach God 
with prayer and sacrifice. It was not till one or two 
millenniums after the Deluge that Abraham was the 
appointed head of a people who should worship God 
according to a divinely prescribed liturgy. This was 
not provided at the first, and men followed their own 
devices. Yet before Moses men fought and died for 
their religious convictions. Before the Bible there was 
Sabbath, Sabbath observance and the worship of God. 
So-called spiritism was a fantasy. Totemism was tribal 
history and tribal traditions, little more. 

I have seen educated Christian women kneel on the 
grass to kiss the flowers, a lesser adoration than wor- 
ship, but arising from strong feelings of admiration. 
So from appreciation of his warmth in autumnal days, 
I have heard a child of only six years repeatedly say, 
" The sun will keep me warm ; the sun will not let me 
take cold." It was a real apostrophizing of nature in 
word and act. Nature, indeed, is an early and impres- 
sive teacher. Even flowers tell us the hour of the day ; 
plants the week of the month ; trees the month of the 
year ; suns and stars the years of a great cycle. Men 
of old time observed much ; they read but little ; they 
thought a great deal. Naturally they concluded every- 
thing good was to be appreciated, while everything evil 
was to be deprecated. Thus it was in Babylonia and 
in Egypt. " Her animal worship," says Eanke, " rests 



66 THE FIMST SABBATH 

upon a presumption that the deity is in the habit of 
assuming certain animal forms. This did, indeed, 
degenerate into idolatry, but it was never forgotten that 
all was symbolical, and worship was always paid to the 
god concealed under an external form. The Egyptian 
system embraced the whole phenomenal world and man. 
Life was not ended in death ; it was to return to its 
Divine source. Beyond the grave was another Nileland, 
where the pure soul would be united with the Deity, 
and yet retain its individuality. In the sarcophagus 
documents were placed designed to show that the de- 
ceased are worthy of admission among the blessed. " 
We should remember that the second commandment 
was not enacted before Moses, and that Jahvism did 
not arise from it, but it was a Divine " manifesto against 
the idolatry then prevalent in the world. " That a 
strange blending of spirit in nature worship " long re- 
mained dear to the lower classes' ' is evidence of want of 
original instruction to them. The Decalogue was not 
then given. The marvel rather is that monotheism 
did, in fact, struggle for supremacy ages before it was 
proclaimed from Sinai. • 

Professor Sayce seems to predict a coming time when 
the brick inscriptions may be translated in the Biblical 
style ; what but capacity in the translator now prevents 
such rendering, if thereby greater accuracy of the orig- 
inal meaning would be attained ? Those ancient 
records, so far as known, disclose a vast contrast in spir- 
itual character between their subject-matter and pas- 
sages like Ps. 91 and 97, Isa. 35, 40, and 44, not to say 
Heb. 1. Expressions like " The effulgence of His glory, 
and the very image of His substance ; the Sun of 
Eighteousness with healing in His wings ; ministering 
spirits sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation ; 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP, 67 

let all the angels of God worship Him/ 5 illustrate the 
ease with which a people of a poetic and luxuriant tem- 
perament might pervert correct religious ideas into 
Mithraism, Osirianism, the later polytheism, and Baby- 
lonian angelology. Add to this the symbolism of the 
serpent in Eden, and that for long ages there was no 
divinely appointed ritual, no fixed and formulated the- 
ology, no authoritative writings and standard of appeal, 
and the rise of Sabseanism, Accadian Shamanism, and 
the various mythologies of ancient peoples cause no sur- 
prise. Kather our wonder is that any should have pre- 
served the original purity, have been intolerant of error, 
and have maintained their theology with a stubborn 
oppugn ancy, as we find they did on the Euphrates and 
on the Nile. 

A seventh-day Sabbath and the worship of God, more 
or less pure, were observed from Noah to Abraham and 
Sargon I. In Shinar the Semite worshipped One God, 
and did something to correct Accadian errors, as he also 
did in Egypt. Naturalistic theories cannot explain 
Semitic monotheism. A people who honored women, 
giving them the first place of power and influence, can 
hardly have fallen very low in the adoration of nature. 
Their Totems were not symbols of religion, but family 
records. Accad was near neighbor of Ur and largely 
influenced by it, especially when forming a part of the 
tetrapolis which Sargon consolidated. Thus the " peo- 
ple of the highlands" became merged with those who 
occupied the plains between the Eivers, and were dom- 
inated by them. If they learned to adore the spirit of 
"the mountain of the world," the Turanian Olympus, 
on which Noah's Ark rested, spreading thence in all 
directions, meeting Alarodians on the north and Semites 
on the southwest, they must have been largely moulded 



68 THE FIRST SABBATH 

and modified by those of TTr, " the city/' par excellence, 
with its temple to Bel-Istar, the first capital of Baby- 
lonian rulers of the first confederate tetrapolis, compris- 
ing Ur and Accad, Nipur, and Surippac (Uncyclopcedia 
Britannica). Here arose the first struggles for religious 
and political supremacy, so far as known, when Semites 
became the dominant race in Babylonia, and the House- 
God Bel became the King-God or national Deity of the 
country. Sumerians, the most advanced in civilization 
of ancient Babylonians, were essentially monotheists 
when they erected the first temple to the Moon-god, for 
they assigned to the Moon the first place in the firmament. 
Only by misunderstanding did they so honor the in- 
ferior orb of heaven. Accadians became merged with 
them, and lost much of their so-called " spiritism" — a 
spiritism which is seen in New York, when the dying 
year is treated by many to a noisy and grotesque fare- 
well, and the new year is greeted with tootings and 
shootings, a terror to nervous people. Others, again, 
are fervent in their prayers at the moment of the de- 
parting year and at the dawn of the new year. Yet 
none of them regard the year as a personality, or as 
being possessed by any spirit, good or bad. They are 
monotheists for all that, as Scotchmen are, notwith- 
standing their annual celebration of Beltane fires on 
May 1st. 

Moreover, the remains of Accadian literature have 
been preserved by others, largely in copies of the orig- 
inal, and that original flourished only between 2300 B.C. 
and 1700 B.C., when it ceased to be spoken, except by 
the learned. " The bloom of Accadian poetry was four 
thousand years ago." Its legends then passed to As- 
syrians, Phoenicians, and to Aryan Greeks ; possibly the 
Hebrews may have absorbed some of them, and they 



AND PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 69 

became the possession of civilized man (Professor Sayce, 
" Babylonian Literature/' pp. 9-41). 

Accadian laws allowed any man to have a private 
sanctuary or chapel on his estate ; which implies his 
own priest to minister in it, and his own religious cult. 
Such liberty might soon lead to new names for the god 
so worshipped, and to new objects of worship, especially 
when the grantee was of large abnormal religious sub- 
jectivities. No marvel, then, if earlier than 2000 B.C. 
the names for deity in their liturgy were numerous. 
And later copyists may have changed them to suit their 
ideas, as they did in the Deluge legends. The triumphs 
of Kammurabi, " the delight of men/' over Elam and 
Larsa (Ellasar), becoming their king as well as of Accad 
and Sumer, the four races or tribes of that region, a 
thousand years before Nebuchadnezzar, did not enable 
him to hand down to that monarch the original litera- 
ture of Accad. Fixed as the Semitic language may 
have been during that millennium, this does not guar- 
antee the verbal preservation of Accadian theology, or 
of its Divine names. One king worshipped Bel, another 
Marduk, a third Merodach, or Is tar, as the God by 
whose favor he had triumphed over his enemies and per- 
formed exploits. Thus the temple " House of Heaven," 
the Temple of the Moon, and the walls of Ur were built, 
and the country unified. The legend even makes a 
Semi-Divine being to have built the tower Babel, while 
another identifies it as the tower or the tomb of Belus. 
Nor may we forget that Sennacherib razed great Baby- 
lon to its foundations. Early in the seventh century 
" he pulled down, dug up, and burned with fire the 
tower and its palaces, root and branch, destroyed the 
fortress and the double wall, the temples of the gods 
and the towers of brick, and threw their rubbish into 



70 PRIMITIVE WORSHIP. 

the Araxes." Modern discoveries, therefore, can only 
unearth the remains of buildings erected by Essar- 
haddon, Nebuchadnezzar, etc. Indeed, Alexander 
found the Temple of Bel a mass of ruins. The build- 
ings became a quarry, first for Seleucia, then for Ctesi- 
phon, and other towns. The marvel is that remains 
are now so extensive. The famous temple was a pyramid- 
al structure in square stages more than two hundred 
yards each way, and rising stage above stage. The 
shrine at the top contained a golden image of Bel forty 
feet high, with two other statues, one, at least, of gold. 
At the base were two chapels with altars, and two 
images of gold. The God of a great people was wor- 
shipped at great cost. This was alike true in Judea and 
in Babylonia. There, as in Egypt and Assyria, mag- 
nificent temples were erected, expensive sacrifices offered, 
and hymns of praise were sung in the earliest ages to 
the Creator and Preserver of men. A seventh-day Sab- 
bath was observed in His honor and in remembrance of 
His rest from creative work. The Sabbath- worship of 
Eden originated and explains all other worship of God, 
by the three great families of mankind. 



III. 



IMM0ETAL1TY IN LEGENDS AND LONG- 

INGS. 

We have already seen that men in the first ages 
believed in another life ; they confidently looked for it, 
and they prayed to be admitted to its enjoyments. The 
translation of Enoch and the early legend of Noah or 
Khasisatra being taken to dwell with the gods disclose 
the thought of immortality. It expressed Accadian 
belief in continued existence. They also prayed that 
the soul might be admitted to the abode of happiness, 
soar to a lofty place, ascend to the holy hands of G-od, 
be clothed in radiant garments, be seated in the com- 
pany of the celestials, and eat the food of the gods. 
Such exaltation was to be secured by a holy life, by 
prayer and sacrifice ; sevenfold sins were to be forgiven 
through sevenfold mercy ; holy light was to guide 
through earth's dark pathway ; life itseif was a prepa- 
ration for coming judgment, when the angel-god would 
transport the virtuous soul to Heaven's blessedness 
(" Records of the Past/' vol. iii., pp. 133-38). 

If ancient echoes seem at times to be indistinct, it is 
because of the medium of transmittance, not because 
primitive peoples had not definite ideas of immortality. 
Dwellers near the Nile and between the Rivers expressed 
those ideas more in detail than the Hebrews before 
David ; while Cato and Caesar in the Roman Senate, on 
4 



72 IMMORTALITY IN LEGENDS 

the question of the punishment of Catiline, shrank 
from putting him to death, and used those arguments 
which might justify their votes, not as expressing their 
real belief. The vicious even on earth suffer for their 
wickedness, and are scorned by the good ; put them to 
death as a penalty, and you have exhausted retribution ; 
only on the idea of another life, with rewards and pen- 
alties, is it a punishment to be executed. In the ad- 
ministration of government the Romans could not pre- 
sume upon eternal life. Even if taught by the sanctions 
of religion, it was not a part of their civil policy. Sen- 
eca might teach not to fear death, while he shrank from 
it as long as possible. Cicero denied that it was an 
evil, and if the soul be immortal death was a real good ; 
that many philosophers so regarded it ; that historical 
and metaphysical considerations proved the future ex- 
istence of the soul, and that there is no reason to dread 
the end of our earthly career, if we make virtue the sole 
rule of our conduct. Yet his flight from the execu- 
tioner showed his desire to live as long as the gods per- 
mitted. (See his "Tusculan Disputations," lib. 1.) 

The legend of Istar's descent to hell, at least 2000 
B.C., is quite explicit. It tells of a place for the 
wicked, a realm of unhappy souls, where Allat reigned. 
Only by the intervention of Heaven could Istar be res- 
cued after once entering the sevenfold guarded passage. 
There the soul was unclothed and stripped of all its 
covering, surrounded by darkness and death. Only by 
partaking of the waters of life near the throne of the 
avenging goddess could any one, even Istar herself, be 
restored to the upper world. That water alone brought 
back health, beauty, and the light of day. It doubtless 
expressed Accadian belief in a nether world of unhappy 
spirits. It was the abode of unfaithful wives and hus- 



AND LONGINGS. 73 

bands, of youths who had dishonored their bodies, of 
men who had destroyed the purity of their souls, of 
impious kings and of evil spirits. It was the Tophet 
and Gehenna of later Jews, while to the early Hebrew 
Sheol was the realm of all the departed. The body was 
in the grave, the spirit had returned to God, and the 
soul (naphesh) deserted by the spirit, was in Sheol. 
To the Chaldean who served his God, the Lord of Light 
would grant an abode of felicity. He would ' ' live for- 
ever in the land of the silver sky/' (Sec Part I., pp. 
59 and 96.) 

Figured in the side adytum of an Egyptian temple at 
Thebes is a scene of the Judgment of Osiris in the Hall of 
the Two Truths. Copies of it are in Birch's Wilkinson's 
"Egypt" and in Eawlinson's " Ancient Keligions." 
The central shrine is occupied by Osiris, and lesser gods 
or angels attend upon Him. There are forty-two asses- 
sors. In due course of procedure the director of the 
weight produces a pair of scales, places an ostrich 
feather, the emblem of truth, in one scale, and a vase 
supposed to contain the good deeds of the deceased in 
the other scale. Thoth stands by, tablet in hand, and 
records the result. If the good deeds weigh down the 
ostrich feather the soul is adjudged righteous, and " led 
to the boat of the sun/' to be conducted by angels to 
the ■ ' Pools of Peace, ' ' the dwellings of the blessed. 
But if they are lighter than the feather, and do not bal- 
ance it, then the poor soul is sentenced to a course of 
transmigrations in unclean animals, the number and 
duration of the transmigrations to depend upon the 
nature of the sins of the guilty soul and the time needed 
for its purification. If after other trials soul-purity 
was not attained, it was finally pronounced incurable, 
and condemned to annihilation, being destroyed from 



74 IMMORTALITY IN LEGENDS 

the presence of the Lord of Light. But the good soul, 
having passed the Judgment of Amenti, and having been 
purified from all stain of sin, was made the companion 
of Osiris for three thousand years, when it might return 
to earth, re-enter its former body, and live a second 
earthly life. Such process might be repeated till a cer- 
tain mystic cycle should be fulfilled, when final glory 
and blesseduess would be attained by union and absorp- 
tion with the Divine Essence. Hence the practice of 
embalming the bodies of the dead, because it was 
believed they would be revivified and reoccupied by the 
soul, which still lived with Osiris, and would never 
cease to exist either as a personality or by return to the 
Deity from whom it at first emanated. So the mum- 
mies of Egypt prove its ancient belief in the continued 
existence of the soul ; while the Book of the Dead, 
often wrapped around the embalmed, was for their in- 
struction and guidance on the long journey through 
Amenti. However we interpret the details of custom, 
Egyptian mummies prove and illustrate Egyptian belief 
in the continued existence of virtuous souls. Their 
tombs, their Eitual, their legends, are emphatic voices 
of belief in immortality, and of preparation for another 
life. Because that other life was so much more endur- 
ing than the present, they spared no pains and no ex- 
pense in preparation for its happiness and to secure its 
perpetual enjoyment. 

Taught thus by Egyptians, by Babylonians, by Assyr- 
ians, by Persians, and Phoenicians, Greeks, long before 
our era, learned to ask : 

" Who knows whether life may not be death, 
And death itself be life ?" 

The consuming fire that burns the body does not de- 



AND LONGINGS. 75 

stroy the soul. Hence Pythagoreans sought to become 
like God on earth, that they might be with Him in 
heaven. Thus instructed, Socrates believed there was 
that in him which his unjust judges could not destroy, 
nor his friends detain from its upward flight, but which 
would live on in perpetual converse with the immortals, 
the wise, and the good. " Our souls are born again, he 
says ; and as life passes into death, so the dead must 
pass into life ; for if this were not so, all things must 
at last be swallowed up in death." Doubts are 

" Blank misgivings of a creature 
Moving about in worlds not realized." 

The soul carries nothing with her but character and the 
fruits of education. Then she is borne to her own 
place, arrayed in her own jewels, and dwells forever in 
the glorious mansions of the elect. So Antiphanes 
would not lament departed friends, for they are not 
dead, but have gone before us to the spirit world ; and 
we shall follow after, spending eternity in their com- 
pany. And again, death is hungry ; he is the medicine 
for immortality. To one who thought Anaxagoras had 
no regard for his fatherland he said, pointing to heaven, 
" I have great regard for my fatherland." This sug- 
gests the " Babylonian hereafter in the land of the 
silver sky." 

The Hindus said : *' Those holy men who are ac- 
quainted with God, depart this life in the light of day, 
or in the brightness of the moon, and go to Brahm ; 
but those who are not acquainted with Him, die during 
the dark night when the moon does not shine ; they have 
only a mortal birth" (Maurice, " Indian Antiquities," 
vol. ii., pp. 256, 257). 



76 IMMORTALITY IN LEGENDS 

The immortality of the soul and of the individual is 
clearly proclaimed in the Veda, contrary to the common 
notion about Nirvana. Says Professor Roth : " In the 
Veda we find beautiful conceptions of immortality ex- 
pressed in unadorned language, with child-like convic- 
tions. Persia was not the only early place for belief in 
this doctrine. To the truly charitable and good the 
Veda assign the highest place in heaven." The Hebrew, 
unlike the Egyptian, did not expect to return to life in 
the earthly body. In Talmudic literature it is described 
as a resurrection of souls who shall possess new bodies 
springing from the incorruptible bone of the old skele- 
ton. Job says : " The eye of him that hath seen me 
shall see me no more ; thine eyes are upon me, and I 
am not. Man dieth, and wasteth away ; yea, man 
giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" Here Job 
(7:8; 14 : 10), according to Oehler, speaks only of 
man's disappearance from the earthly scene, and not 
that he has entirely ceased to be. He yet sojourns in 
the kingdom of the dead. So in Ps. 37 : 36 ; 39 : 14. 
The existence of man after death is treated as a matter 
of course. In the Old Testament it is never really 
doubted. Job does not doubt his future existence. 
Hebrew uncertainty was only as to the hoiv of an after 
life ; how the soul could be freed from the grasp of 
Sheol. And Ps. 49 : 15 answered it, saying, God will 
redeem my soul from the power of Sheol. Ps. 16 : 10 : 
He will not leave my soul in hell — i e., in Sheol. The 
path of life leads to the Divine presence, where are ever- 
lasting pleasures. As a punishment the King of Baby- 
lon was brought down to Sheol, yet his body was refused 
burial (Isa. 14 : 15, 19). There was no promise of his 
redemption. Hence Sheol becomes the region of dark- 
ness and forgetfulness (Ps. 88 : 12 ; Eccles. 9:5, 6, 



AND LONGINGS. 77 

10 ; Ps. 6:5; 115 : 17) ; but consciousness was not 
destroyed ; the sleepers might be awakened and sing- 
again. Without the flesh they shall see God. Peace- 
fully to be buried with his fathers was the patriarch's 
hope of being happy with them in Sheol and with their 
God (Gen. 48 and 49). The Assyrian Sualu, like the 
Hebrew Sheol, designates the region of the departed. 
It was that state from which God alone could deliver 
and transfer to the enjoyment of His presence. (Com- 
pare Job 14 : 14 ; 19 : 25-27 ; Ps. 16 : 10, 11 ; 49 : 15 ; 
Isa. 26 : 19.) 

Very early the looped cross + was the sign of life, as it 
is with modern Christians in Roman or Greek form. 
Abraham and contemporary Egyptians paid equal atten- 
tion about the purchase of a burial-ground. The patri- 
arch would buy it of the sons of Heth, and those of the 
Nileland spent large sums upon their sepulchres or 
" eternal habitations," as they called them. The idea 
of another life on earth, of continued life in the pres- 
ence of God, or of Osiris, led to honor and even venera- 
tion of the virtuous departed ; not because they had 
become deified, but because the soul was of the Divine 
essence, and returned to God. The emanation was orig- 
inally from the Divine to the human ; after the judg- 
ment and approval of Osiris the soul would dwell with 
Him. Kings and peasants must pass that ordeal. In- 
deed, the name of a wicked Pharaoh was erased from 
th'e tablet, and his body refused burial in the cemetery 
prepared for him, funeral honors being denied him after 
death, which was the severest of punishments to Egyp- 
tians and to Hebrews. (See Wilkinson ; 1 Kings 14 : 
13 ; 16 : 18 ; Jer. 36 : 30.) 

Assyrian belief of future blessedness was an " eternal 
abode in the land of the silver sky. M The opposite of 



78 IMMORTALITY IN LEGENDS 

this was the imprecation of Tiglath-Pileser I. about the 
era of Samson, upon any one who should injure his 
tablets and cylinders, or erase the writing or divide the 
sculptures. Let Anu and Vul consign his name to per- 
dition ! a lot even more undesirable than the Egyptian 
sentence to transmigration into loathsome animals, but 
with a chance of recovery and reinstatement. In both 
countries belief in two states for departed souls was prev- 
alent, with or without possibility of restoration. Dif- 
ferent degrees of sinfulness met with diiferent degrees 
of punishment. (See " Kecords of the Past," vol. v., 
pp. 7-26 ; Kawlinson, " An. Mon.," vol. 2 ; " An. Kelig- 
ions," p. 54 ; Sayce's Hibbert Lects., 1887.) 

But in Hebrew- Pales tine to the time when Solomon 
built a sanctuary to Milcom-Ashtoreth for the rise of his 
strange wives, in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to its 
purification by Josiah, Sheol was the one word to desig- 
nate the place of departed souls, good and bad. Within 
a living generation of that time the Exile to Babylon 
led to some new definitions of angelology and of escha- 
tology by the Jews. And this may have been modified 
by Persian influence. Zoroastrians believed in both the 
immortality of the soul and in the resurrection of the 
body. Mahomet learned of them his notion of the narrow 
bridge over which good souls might pass by the aid of 
good angels to Ormuzd, while wicked souls fell into the 
bottomless pit of Angro-Mainyus. Indeed, from the 
plains of Shinar the idea of immortality spread through 
Babylonia and Assyria, Egypt and Judea, Persia and 
India. Early Vedic bards sang of eternal life, and to 
be made immortal where the desires of the heart would 
be realized. Hence their earnest prayers for the pardon 
of sin, and to be absolved from the sins of their fathers. 
" Let me not yet enter the house of clay, Varuna ! 



AND LONGINGS. 79 

Have mercy, Almighty, have mercy !" Another says, 
Who gives alms goes to the highest place in heaven — 
to the gods. Heaven is gained by pious works. Pious 
sacrificers enjoy the heaven of Indra ; they dwell in the 
presence of the gods. But Indra casts into the pit 
those who do not sacrifice ; the wicked, false in thought 
and false in speech, are born for the deep abyss of hell ! 
Who can doubt that these bright rays of light, amid so 
much darkness, came from God inspiring the thought, 
and in many guiding the soul to earnest endeavors to 
serve Him ? They attained to much of true religion ; 
to belief in One Eternal and Perfect Being ; to the need 
of worship and of holy living in order to please Him, 
and to supplicate His mercy and pardon of their sins in 
order to attain admission to the radiant worlds where 
He dwelt in eternal light and blessedness. (See hymn 
on p. 96, Part I.; Miiller's " Sanskrit Literature/' and 
Bawlmson's " Ancient Religions.") 

As early as Cyrus and Darius their religion taught 
how to prepare for life with Ormuzd ; how to worship 
Him, and appease the evil Angro-Mainyu. Thrice each 
day and thrice each night the heavenly priest was 
thought to smite the evil one and his crew ; and to 
secure victory, prayers and sacrifices were offered by 
Persian worshippers, and they drank the sacramental 
juice which should make men immortal on the day of 
resurrection. Thus they believed in the immortality of 
the soul and in the resurrection of the body ; that an 
" eternal spring should come when the earth would be 
repeopled by the risen bodies of the righteous. " Then 
the evil serpent, after his bondage on the high peak of 
a mountain, would be loosed and slain ; and a son born 
to Zoroaster would bring eternal life and light to glori- 
fied mankind, as his father had once brought the law 
4* 



80 IMMORTALITY IN LEUENDX 

and the truth. Zoroastrian monotheism was made the 
State religion under Darius Hystaspes. So Professor 
Sayce. The Zend-Avesta is as explicit as Num. 15 : 30 
and Deut. 17 : 12, that no atonement was provided for 
certain sins, sins of omission as well as of commission, 
and the guilty were doomed to the abode of Angro- 
Mainyu and his crew of demons. In the end Ahriman 
will be forever vanquished and brought to naught. But 
it provided that a man belongs according to his deeds 
to Ormuzd or to Ahriman, and the good would go to 
the palace of Varuna to live a life of everlasting happi- 
ness ; while the bad would go to Ahriman or Angro- 
Mainyu, who is eternal death. For in paradise good 
souls manifest goodness of spirit and excellence of 
mind ; they taste at once of as much pleasure as the 
whole living world can taste, in the place of Endless 
Lights. But wicked souls taste of as much of suffering 
as the whole world can taste, of evil thought, evil word, 
evil deed, in endless darkness. On the contrary, the 
souls of the faithful in the paradise of Varuna are 
supremely happy, good in thought, good in word, good 
in deed, and enjoy Endless Light. (See Darmesteter's 
translation " Sacred Books of the East, " Part. I., pp. 70, 
75; Part II., pp. 315-344.) Homer sang that ;i in 
Elysium man's whole existence is a state of ease ; no 
snow is there, nor violent storms, nor rain ; where 
Ehadamanthus dwells the gently blowing zephyrs re- 
fresh the weary soul/' Plato is more spiritual in his 
view of death and judgment when the soul shall put on 
immortality, and he concludes : " Wherefore, what 
ought we not to do to attain virtue and wisdom in this 
life, when the prize is so glorious, and the hope so great. 
But as for wicked souls, they will be thrown into Tar- 
tarus, whence they can never come forth, and their pun- 



AND LONGINGS. 81 

ishment will be everlasting." As similar teachings are 
found in the Gorgias, the Phaedo, and the story of Er, 
it would seem that Plato so believed. A century before, 
Theognis had inquired how one could reconcile it to his 
sense of right and wrong, if the wicked and the good 
were treated in the same way? And Pericles thought 
a kingly soul demands a kingly state, as Egyptians had 
thought near two thousand years before him (Wilkin- 
son's "Egypt," vol. ii., pp. 496, 499). Indeed, they 
give a good rendering of Job 29 : 18, I shall multiply 
my days as the Phoenix, which was said to live six hun- 
dred and sixty years, and then to rise again from its 
ashes. He was therefore not an inappropriate emblem 
of immortality, of the everlasting reproduction of the 
highest forms of life, before reunion with the Deity. 
It recalls the waters of life near the throne of Allat, 
which were poured on Istar before recovering her former 
state. Istar's descent suggests that of Orpheus after 
Eurydice ; and " the death of Adonis, and the descent 
of the goddess into Hades to search for him, formed the 
subject of Accadian poems before the Greek had yet 
reached his future home." So the Greek Charon repre- 
sents the Egyptian Nephthys, and the Eiver Styx the 
sacred lakes of Egypt. The cerberus of Pluto is an- 
other expression for Allat's sevenfold guarded passage 
to the nether world. With a priest Egyptians buried 
the insignia of his office ; with a soldier his arms, and 
so with others to indicate their employments on earth. 
Similarly the Hindus, Gauls, and Britons buried or 
burned with the deceased the things — even animals and 
servants — that were most dear in life. So Pope sings of 
our Indian, who 

** Thinks, admitted to yon equal sky, 
His faithful dog shall bear him company." 



82 IMMORTALITY IN LEGENDS 

With Attila the Hun, with Scythians and Tartars, were 
also buried or sacrificed for him living attendants and 
useful articles for his service in life after death. (See 
pp. 33, 34, of Parti.) 

Remarkable as are these ideas and preparations for 
the life beyond the River and the happiness of disem- 
bodied souls, in Egypt and Babylonia, in Assyria and 
Persia, in India and Britain, with echoes of them in 
Gaul, Lydia, and Phoenicia, they are no more remark- 
able than the early attainments in civilization of those 
primitive peoples. The one word of explanation for it 
all, and the only rational and adequate explanation, is 
that of original and Divine instruction to man ; super- 
nal intuition and direction of heart, intellect and hand, 
which enabled him in his ignorance to achieve at once 
the highest attainments of humanity, which in essence 
and character are unsurpassed to-day. If we have found 
evidences of God the Creator, and we believe they 
amount to a demonstration of intelligent creation by 
Divine direction, then we need not hesitate about affirm- 
ing God the Revealer and original Instructor. Univer- 
sal mankind so believed in the first ages, that such 
knowledge was divinely imparted, and that God was 
ever present for them. From our point of view we 
might ask, Why was not this early instruction sooner 
written out, as it was under Moses ? rather than, Why 
was it originally communicated ? And we answer, for 
purposes of self-development and the unfolding of char- 
acter. Something was left for man to do. He was 
given intimations and directions ; let him heed them. 
Let him see what he can do with them. In the fulness 
of time he shall have specific details of ritual and a 
written Revelation. But meantime and always the 
great purpose of life is the unfolding and perfecting of 



AND LONGINGS, 83 

character, the subdual of the human will to the Divine 
will. Creeds and sacraments are but helps by the way, 
pledges and instruments of Divine aid. Till these are 
provided, man must attain to the possession of char- 
acter by culture and personal efforts. But Sabbath 
worship and longings for immortality were powerful 
aids in man's endeavors to prepare for the life beyond. 
He was never left to himself. Ancient legends prove 
this. It is not known to history that a savage people 
ever developed into civilization without external aid. 
The conditions of barbarism tend to strengthen that 
barbarism. Put the builders of the pyramid of Gizeh 
B.C. 2200 or 5000 B.C., the wonder still is that it was 
then built. The farther back we place the time of its 
erection, the greater is the marvel of its construction. 
Uninstructed man could not have built it ; untaught 
men could not have devised the Judgment of Amenti. 
Before its conception there were explicit ideas of man's 
being judged after death for his conduct in life. We 
suggest Divine instruction to him that conduct formed 
character, and that character in life determined the 
soul's condition after death. The elementary princi- 
ples of religion were God-given in Eden, and thence to 
all the first nations. If that light became obscured, it 
was by not regarding it, by negligence and misconduct. 
This is strikingly illustrated in the history of Israel. 
There were periods after Moses when the Divine-cove- 
nant-religion was hardly observed. Solomon's shrines 
to Chemosh and to Moloch, Jeroboam's calves at Dan 
and Bethel, Ahab's altars to Baal in Samaria, and the 
Syrian altar of Ahaz at the Jerusalem Temple, made 
devout worshippers of Jehovah tremble for the conse- 
quences. Despite the Law and the Prophets apostasy 
from Divine covenant was frequent. It was only cor- 



84 IMMORTALITY IN LEGENDS 

rected and cured now by the exile of the Ten Tribes to 
Assyria, and now by carrying the Two Tribes into 
Babylonia. The praises of a virtuous wife were sung 
as loudly on the Euphrates two millenniums before our 
era as by the much-married King of Israel ; and they 
had more to say than he of immortal life ; but neither 
he nor they maintained a high degree of chastity, nor 
lived up to the standard of the Saints' Calendar. Dread 
of the judgment of Osiris, dread of the realm of Allat, 
dread of Sheol, of the narrow bridge over the deep 
chasm of Zoroaster, and of condemnation by Minos or 
by Ehadamanthus, did not induce all the men and 
women of old time to live righteously and be loyal in 
serving God. Before Moses and Divine covenant, as 
with them, men failed in reaching the standard they 
possessed. So it is to-day. The assurance of immortal 
life in Jesus Christ does not draw all men unto Him. 
Few among us would lend money to the living, as did 
the ancient Gauls, to be repaid in the spirit world, as a 
test of their belief in eternal life. Belief in this does 
not make men loyal to God and man. They " jump 
the life to come ;" risk the bridge of the gatherer ; pas- 
sage in the ferryboat of Charon ; over the Sacred Lake, 
and the slippery pass of Chippeway Indians. The sym- 
bol of eternal life in some form has been found from 
Assyria to Britain, from Egypt to India and China, 
among the aborigines of North and South America, and 
the Islands of the Pacific. The sign of immortality 
and the symbol of the resurrection are seen everywhere. 
(See Edinburgh Review for July, 1870 ; Donnelly's 
''Atlantis," pp. 133-35.) Yet Sadducees denied the 
doctrine, and made an uproar against the Apostle who 
preached it. Nevertheless eternal life was the hope and 
belief of mankind. Job did not think that his patient 



AND LONGINGS. 85 

endurance would be forever remembered ; nor was that 
what he looked for when he affirmed that from or with- 
out his flesh he should see God (19 : 26). Posthumous 
reputation was not what he expected instead of revivified 
life with God ; so of David when he thought of the re- 
demption of his soul from Sheol, and of rejoicing in the 
Divine presence ; so of Isaiah : " Thy dead shall live ; 
Awake and sing!" So of Daniel: "Many of them 
that sleep in the earth shall awake, some to everlasting 
life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" 
(12 : 2). So the Hindus : " Let my soul return to the 
immortals. From mortal man, felled by the hand of 
death, God shall make him spring to birth. He is per- 
fect wisdom and perfect happiness. He vivifies all." 
(Craufurd's " India," vol. i., pp. 180-94 ; Eccles. 12 : 
7.) So of Socrates, five centuries before St. John's 
Gospel, yet confident that " death was but the passage 
of the soul to another world, where he would find juster 
judgments and truer judges than he had found on earth, 
and he would there hold converse with departed worthies 
whom he had been wont to interrogate. Hence it was 
better for him to die, to go to those who were wise and 
good. The lot of the good man is far better than that 
of the wicked. He will enjoy the converse of pure 
souls in the light of perfect truth. Our souls will not 
vanish like smoke, but will be born again into life. 
Nay, is not much of our knowledge the soul's recollec- 
tion ? Were death the end-all, the wicked, not the vir- 
tuous, would gain by dying. On the everlasting journey 
the soul carries nothing with her but her nurture and 
education. An angel will lead her through untried 
places to dwell forever in the mansions of the elect." 
Such a teacher was a remarkable illustration of Plato's 
prediction, that if ever a perfectly good man were to 



*<> IMMORTALITY IN LEGENDS 

appear on earth, he would be maltreated and crucified. 
(See Westminster Review, July, 1854, p. 77.) 

Socrates put to death on the charge of corrupting the 
youth of Athens and for disbelief in the national gods, 
was only one of many, from Abel downward, who have 
been the victims of injustice. Thus our Lord, the most 
reverent of men, was convicted of blasphemy by His 
enemies, and executed for treason by Pilate. And the 
devout Stephen was stoned to death for seeing his 
Lord in a supernal vision ! Only faith in this Grandest 
of Persons and assured hope in His sublime doctrines 
can sustain the soul in such emergencies. It is Jesus 
standing on the right hand of God, who supports 
and comforts the believer ; who comforted the noble 
army of martyrs and confessors from St. Paul in 
the Roman prison to John Bunyan in Bedford jail ; 
from John Baptist in Herod's castle to the Hugue- 
nots in besieged Eochelle. Witness Eoger Williams 
and the Quakers persecuted in Massachusetts, early 
Methodists persecuted in England, and liberal Presby- 
terians persecuted in Scotland. Jesus, indeed, does not 
speak alike to all His followers, but all are moved by 
Him. When they hear they obey. His love and the 
compensations of eternity attract them to Him. His 
was a voice which all generations had waited for and 
longed to hear. His was a word which had never before 
been so clearly and so emphatically uttered. And He 
gave examples of His power to fulfil His promise : 
" Maid, arise ! young man, I say unto thee arise ! 
Lazarus, come forth I" And all were restored to life. 
Dare we doubt His pledge to others, and that at His 
bidding all that are in Hades will not come forth ? His 
own example illustrates His power ; He Himself rose 
from the dead. He conquered death, and opened the 



AND LONGINGS. 87 

Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. Wherefore all may 
pass through the tomb to eternal blessedness. 

Yet there are those who would rob men of this grand 
victory, and despoil them of immortal hopes. They 
would reverse the progress of ages, and transform 
triumph into defeat. Nay, they would eliminate the 
potency as well as the promise of future existence. 
They make the soul a secretion or function of the body, 
so that it is only physical in its origin and end, not the 
God-imparted spirit which is immortal. They hear not 
the testimony of patriarchs and prophets, nor the voices 
of Egypt and Chaldea, of Persia and India. They are 
deaf to the spoken words of Jesus, to the earthquake 
and the open sepulchre which proclaim Him at once the 
Eesurrection and the Life. They transmute immortality 
into posthumous reputation ; eternal life into the con- 
tinued existence of mankind : soul and spirit into a 
product of matter, and man into a molecule. Thank 
Heaven, our historic gleanings of legends and longings 
in universal mankind disprove this ! From the tombs 
of ancient Egypt, from the inscriptions of Babylonia, 
from the royal records of Assyria, from the teachings 
of Zoroaster and the bards of India, from Hebrew 
Psalmists and prophetic utterances, and from the prom- 
ises, the proofs, and the example of Jesus Christ, we 
have reasonable evidence, amounting to a demonstration, 
of the immortality of man. Conscience, memory, soul- 
qualities, the voice of God, in life and at the dying 
hour, alike suggest and confirm it. The conception of 
it is a proof. Longing for it is a proof. Preparation 
for it proves capacity for it. Wherefore Coleridge 
rightly asks : 

11 Is that a death-bed where the Christian lies? 
Yes, but not his ; 'tis death itself that dies !" 



88 IMMORTALITY IN LEGENDS 

That which suggests immortality is capable of it. 
"It is the Infinite stirring within the finite breast." 
Contrast the idea that the pains and sorrows, the desires 
and aspirations, the love and belief of mankind shall 
end in the grave and be like precious nectar forever 
spilled in the dust, with the belief which all nations 
have more or less clearly regarded as the chief hope 
and fruition of existence. Dare we discard belief in a 
law of compensation reigning throughout the universe, 
and that the inequalities of time shall be compensated 
in eternity ? What comfort is it to be told that we shall 
join the " choir invisible/' whose voice is "the music 
of the world," if the choir invisible and musical world 
shall cease to be, and an eternal night engulf all souls, 
and everything, like ghosts and phantoms, shall dis- 
appear in darkness ! For then not only will the souls 
we love leave us on a desolate shore, but on this theory 
all souls will alike be engulfed in the dark ocean of de- 
parted existence, never to think, or love, or live again ! 
The whipped slave praying for his cruel master ; the 
apostles and martyrs burned at the stake for the faith 
and love of Jesus — seekers after the truth like Athenag- 
oras and Augustine, like Pascal and Littleton, like 
Bishop Butler and Dr. Chalmers — all these, on this sad 
outcome of negation, will share the same fate with him 
who had feasted and filled himself with earthly enjoy- 
ments ! Surely such notions shatter all possibility of 
future compensation, and they would soon eliminate all 
aspiration and noble effort. They level and destroy 
what is best and divinest in man, and have no uplifting 
and inspiring qualities. For blank is blank, despite all 
scientific whitewashing. And if the end and final up- 
shot is to cease to be, what is that but universal blank ? 
Bud, flower, and fruit alike destroyed ! It does not per- 



AND LONGINGS. 89 

mit even final absorption into Brahm ! No ; a thousand 
times no ! Let me rather hold to metempsychosis or to 
absorption by a Divine To Pan. Yet since I have begun 
to live, who, what can blot me out of being ? May not 
continued life be predicated of man's earthly life ? We 
talk about " the future life," but what is life anywhere 
but present existence? It is consciousness of joy or 
sorrow, acting or thinking, remembering or aspiring. 
Anything future about it is only the continuation of 
to-day, with new experiences. The life of each day 
prepares for the next ; new times, new thoughts and 
duties. We are ever preparing for the next day, ever 
following out the line of conduct already commenced. 
Manhood is the future life of the boy, precisely in the 
same sense as the disembodied condition is the future 
life of the aged. What can prevent one in that con- 
tinued life from pursuing the same lines of thought, of 
conduct, mental and spiritual habits, desires and aspira- 
tions, except so far as such pursuits were dependent 
upon the body ? Simply to be ^embodied can make 
no radical change in the character, in soul conduct, 
memory, affection, and reverence of God. We are in 
His Divine hands now. Dives imploring Abraham in 
Hades shows that he there retained his reasoning powers, 
memory of the past and fraternal affection ; also fear of 
God and dread of suffering. So, divested of the timal 
and its belongings, we shall retain our identity, memory, 
understanding, consciousness, which we now possess ; 
soul- affection, love of God, love to our fellows, all which 
affords self-proof of our selfhood. Thus shall we know 
others even as we are known. Thus shall we love in 
our life of to-morrow all that is spiritual and worthy in 
our friends of to-day. Said Dr. Thomas Sydenham, 
two hundred years ago : " How can I think that the 



90 IMMORTALITY IN LEGENDS 

Divine Being, who hath admitted me to a little acquaint- 
ance with Him, will let the laying down of my body 
perfectly break off this acquaintance, and not rather 
that the throwing off of this load of corruption will put 
my soul into a condition more suitable to its own 
nature, it being much more difficult to think how such 
a noble substance as the soul should be united to the 
body, than how it should subsist separately from it. 
Add to this that I have faculties of knowing and of 
adoring this Divine Being with close attention, and 
that I have endeavored to yield obedience to those laws 
which He hath written upon my nature ; that I who 
have thus attained (supposing I have so attained) should 
become extinguished, or should extinguish when my 
body dies, is, indeed, very unlikely. In mankind a cer- 
tain appetite reaches out after future happiness, but 
that there should be no such thing to answer to it, thus 
cheating the rational part of man, is very improbable." 
It is only infirmity of the body which prevents the con- 
tinued ^manifestations of the soul, at least in all who 
ever think or love, remember or hope. " In February, 
1885, at Wilmington, 111., died Mrs. Wilmore at the 
age of one hundred and fourteen years. On her death- 
bed much of her forgotten history, with scenes of her 
early life, seemed to pass before her mind. She re- 
peated many hymns and passages of Scripture, sang 
beautifully many familiar tunes which she had learned 
in her youth, and called her last hours the happiest and 
sweetest of her life. She had always prayed to die in 
the triumphs of the Christian faith, but had never 
thought it would be so glorious. With spiritual eyes 
she saw the King in His beauty. Leaving her body 
behind, she departed to be with Him. Because Jesus 
lives, she shall live also/' Says one : " I think, there- 



AND LOGGINGS. 91 

fore I am ; I think a God, therefore God is ;" I think of 
and desire immortality, therefore, since One has pur- 
chased it for me, and ransomed me from death, I shall 
have eternal life. So have myriads of mankind in all 
the ages. Why give me such capacities and aspirations, 
if I am to be utterly disappointed ? I hare been prom- 
ised, and seem to have the potency of eternal life ; why 
deceive and mock my expectations? The Father does 
not lift one up, soaring to supernal heights, only to dash 
him down and extinguish him. He does not inspire a 
hope, or make a promise, in order to disappoint, 
Bather He fulfils and perfects ; intimation and longing 
become pledge and assurance ; for soul and spirit a 
home has been prepared. Jesus has gone before and 
opened the doors of heaven. 

Thus let me think and hope with the thoughtful of 
past times, with Chaldeans and Egyptians, with Greeks, 
Gauls, and Goths, with Hindus, Jews, and Christians. 
By the resurrection of my Lord, let me feel that life 
eternal has been secured for me, that I shall live forever 
with Him who hath redeemed my soul from death. 
Then to die is gain and the path to immortal life. But 
I see it not in posthumous reputation, nor in prolonged 
national existence. I hear it not in the music of the 
spheres, nor in any choir of invisible phantoms. 
Rather do I see it at the stake of holy martyrs, in the 
cells of those persecuted for righteousness, at the bed of 
dying Christians, by the Cross of the Son of God, and 
in the faith of Stephen, who saw the opening heavens 
and Jesus beckoning him away ! Thus let me think 
of immortality, be assured of it, and prepare for it. 



IV. 



THE LAMB SLAIN FOR MAN'S REDEMP- 
TION. 

Foreordained before the foundation of the world (1 St. Peter 
1 : 20). 

Anointed for to do whatsoever Thy counsel predetermined to be 
done (Acts 4 : 27, 28). 

He is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world (1 St. 
John 2 : 2). 

Slain from the foundation of the world (Apocalypse 13 : 8). 

Levi, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham. For he 
was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him 
(Heb. 7 : 9, 10). 

The last passage clearly illustrates how the solidaric 
unity of the human race is a reasonable conception, and 
removes the difficulty of Lotze in his " Philosophy of 
Religion/' p. 151. It also explains St. Paul, that all 
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God ; that 
He hath set forth Jesus Christ to be the redemption and 
propitiation of man, even for the remission of sins that 
are past, or of sins done aforetime ; that G-od might be 
just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus 
(Rom. 3 : 23-26 ; 5 : 8-19). Adam sinned while yet 
the race was in solidaric unity in him, and Adam was 
redeemed while yet the race was in solidaric unity in 
him. But he entailed a sin-inclined nature, or what 
Coleridge calls " an evil will," upon his children. 



ORIGINAL REDEMPTION. 03 

Promised redemption was of the soul, redemption of the 
evil will, that all souls might regain forfeited soul-life 
through the^ Redeemer ; not freedom from hereditary- 
taint, but conquest over a sin-inclined nature. Thus 
Redemption is of solidaric man, not conditional, but of 
world-wide efficacy, the outcome of a Father's love 
joined with perfect righteousness ; all-embracing, yet 
not accepted by all, because some will not be saved 
when they may. Thus God stoops to earth, but He 
does not compel men to soar to heaven. He is abound- 
ing in His providings, but man is self-limited in his 
acceptances. 

It is so with the gifts of nature. Sun and air, food 
and clothing, and capacity of enjoyment, are the heritage 
of most men. If limitations are experienced by any, 
they are not of Heaven. Restrictions in the enjoyment 
of the good things of life are mostly human and self- 
imposed. The miner, the slave, the prisoner, all who 
must obey the behests of another, are thus by human 
arrangements and devisings, not through Heaven's orig- 
inal plan. So of the evils of heredity. Entailed evils 
are of man, and like all evil penalties, come of violated 
law through an evil will. How a Redeemer could ran- 
som all and save a world of sinners is the question of 
the ages, while its solution is of Heaven. Generous as 
are the bounties of nature, she yet allows men to impose 
restrictions, and the strongest to get the larger share. 
Hence the popular phrase, " survival of the fittest, " is 
as destitute of grace as it is suggestive of strength. It 
lacks the character of faith, the patience of saints, the 
spirit of the beatitudes. It has no blessing for the poor 
in spirit, for the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, 
the peacemakers, and those hungering after righteous- 
ness, who shall be filled with the good things of the 



94: THE LAMB SLAIN 

heavenly kingdom. Any restrictions are of men's de- 
vising and exclusiveness. Thus it happens that to want 
is as human as to err. No one ever fails of salvation 
for want of ample provision or lack of grace. Eedemp- 
tion is co-extensive with human souls. Heaven's grace 
is as free as the sunshine. The Author of salvation was 
beloved of the Father before the foundation of the 
world, because He would save the world which the 
Father loved. Indeed, Jesus was made a little lower 
than the angels, that He might taste death for every 
man (Heb. 2:9). The word rendered for means on 
account of, for the sake of, instead of all men. It sug- 
gests that Christ's death made salvation available and 
effectual for all. The agony of the Garden and of 
Crucifixion was not limited to the expiation of some 
sins or of some sinners, but He tasted death — V7tep 
7ravr6s — for every one, for all who believe in Him. It 
is available retrospectively and prospectively for all sin 
of all believers. It is for the benefit of mankind equally 
with the sun and showers of Heaven. The favors of 
grace are as free as the blessings of nature. As in 
Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive. In 
Adam death, in Christ life ; but while we have no 
option over our birth, we have the option whether we 
will be in Christ, so we have the option whether we will 
enjoy the air and light of day. We may hide away, we 
may deprive ourselves of God's grace and of His sun- 
shine. Yet He is as bounteous with the one as with 
the other. Jesus Christ died for every man. Indeed, 
is it not the crowning glory of His atonement that He 
put the whole race in the way of salvation, all who were 
rained by Adam's sin ? Adam as our federal head 
brought sin and death upon all ; Jesus as our federal 
Saviour brought salvation to all. The one disobeyed 



FOR MAN'S REDEMPTION. 95 

and fell, the other fulfilled and ransomed. In one we 
see the weakness of human nature, in the other we see 
the power, goodness, and loye of God. Almost all 
Christians accept this as Bible truth. 

Let us advance another step. Adam sinned before 
the birth of his first child ; he sinned while the race 
was yet a unit. Thus he involved all his posterity. 
Had one child been born, that would not have been 
tainted with Adam's guilt nor obnoxious to Adam's 
penalty. But it was not so. The sin and the fall were 
before the firstborn of man, and involved all who should 
be born in guilt and condemnation. 

Another step is this : As soon as man sinned a 
Saviour was promised (Gen. 3 : 15), and that promise 
was accepted as the legal fulfilment of it. The seed of 
the woman should bruise the serpent's head, which in 
due course was accomplished. It was as truly accom- 
plished in the purposes of God, in the sacrifice of Jesus, 
while man was still a unit, as in the fulness of time 
when He died upon Calvary. With Him a thousand 
years are as one day. The promise, since it surely 
would be kept and redeemed, anticipated the fulfilment, 
so that it was just as acceptable and as efficacious as if 
it had been fulfilled when first prompted by a gracious 
Saviour, Who was the Seed of the woman. I repeat, it 
was made and accepted while man was yet a unit, and 
before his firstborn child. This view tends to remove a 
great difficulty which some find in treating this matter. 
It makes salvation synchronize with condemnation. It 
perfectly vindicates and justifies the principle of substi- 
tution. A competent substitute was promptly found, 
and was accepted ; One who should be born without sin 
by the creative power of God ; who should obey the law 
for man, to show that he could have obeyed it, and then 
5 



% THE LAMB SLAIN 

should pay the penalty for his sin. This great trans- 
action was assured for man while he was in unity, for 
Adam as fully as for his last born child, and for each 
one as surely as that he was born after the saving sub- 
stitute had been offered and accepted. Thus God is 
just, while He justifies him who believes in this pledged 
Saviour ; the Saviour of the world, because He was the 
Saviour of man in unity, of the unit and of all who 
should descend from him. There is no limitation here. 

But for man's instruction, and, if we may so say, to 
emphasize the blessings of Eedemption, a long line of 
prophecy preceded and prepared for the incarnate Man, 
who was to teach and to save the world. Other teachers 
had appeared, and had failed. Other incarnations had 
been declared, and had been found wanting. Brahma, 
Vishnu, Buddha left men longing for a truer and 
Diviner Saviour. At length He came, the Eedeemer of 
all men, truly representing the solidaric unity of the 
race, and the Saviour of all who should believe in Him, 
because He died for them. Thus I understand the 
words, He tasted death for all, and so became the 
Eedeemer of mankind. For He died forensically when 
He became the substitute of our race in solidaric unity. 
Hence, loss in Adam is regained by salvation in Jesus 
Christ, the loss and the gain being alike in unity. 

We may now proceed a step further. In Eev. 13 : 8 
we read : " All that dwell upon the earth shall worship 
him (the beast or Antichrist), whose names are not 
written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world/' If, with some critics, we 
transpose thus : " Whose names are not written in the 
Book of Life from the foundation of the world, of the 
Lamb that was slain/' we do not change the truth 
therein taught. For the names could not have been 



ZOR MAN'S REDEMPTION. 9? 

Written in the Book of Life, unless the Lamb had been 
slain ; nor could they have been written from the found- 
ation of the world, unless the Lamb had been slain 
from the foundation of the world. The life spoken of 
was purchased by the blood of the Lamb slain, and the 
names of believers in Him were written in the Book of 
Life, because He had died for them, had ransomed them 
from the power of the grave, had redeemed them from 
death and destruction (Hos. 13 : 14). If one was from 
the foundation of the world so also was the other. The 
written names and redemption's work were from the 
beginning of God's saving purposes. The Omniscient 
One knew who would believe in Jesus ; knew the human 
wills that would submit to Him. 

We find a similar truth in Kev. 17 : 8, but with the 
words " the Lamb slain" left out. Yet we must not 
correct the fuller statement by the one less explicit, for 
thus we might eliminate many important truths. It 
would be a riddling of Scripture. In both these pas- 
sages we are told of them whose names were not written 
in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world ; 
and in one passage we have the additional truth that 
the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world. 
There is no contradiction, only a fuller statement : 
the Lamb slain and the names written were from the 
foundation of the world. I doubt the wisdom of 
going back to an earlier period of eternity. Man was 
born in time ; he sinned in time, and was redeemed in 
time. 

Taking the word to mean, as in many other passages 
of Holy Scripture, from the beginning of the dispensa- 
tion of Grace, from the promise of Divine interposition 
on man's behalf, in a pledged Saviour who should crush 
the serpent and save men from its poison, there can be 



08 THE LAMB SLAIN 

no objection to our exposition. Original sin is offset by 
original Redemption. 

Having developed these thoughts thus far, I was glad 
to find so prudent and conservative a writer as Bishop 
Beveridge expounding in a similar way : "From the 
time that the first promise of the new covenant was 
made. Then Christ undertook to pay this ransom, by 
dying instead of mankind ; which, therefore, took place 
immediately in the Divine purpose, as much as if it was 
already done. " This reveals the transcendent bounty 
and world-wide compassion of God's love. The remedy 
synchronized with the need, was co extensive with it, 
and effectual for all who applied it. All who should be 
faithful to their opportunities were known, and their 
names were written in the Book of Life through the 
anticipated efficacy of the Slain Lamb. His promise 
saved them.. He ransomed them from the power of the 
grave, and He triumphed over it. Thus victory over 
sin, the victory of light over the powers of darkness, of 
truth over error, was secured. A lost world was re- 
deemed. Mercy and love triumphed over sin and jus- 
tice, through Him who bore our sins in His own body 
on the Cross. And here applies Heb. 7 : 9, 10, affirm- 
ing that Levi, the great-grandson of Abraham, paid 
tithes in Abraham ; for he was yet in the loins of his 
father, when Abraham met Melchisedec. This clearly 
makes for all that I claim — viz., not for the " impossible 
conception of the solidaric unity of the human race," 
at the time of the crucifixion of our Lord, to which 
Lotze objects, but for the solidaric unity of man in 
Adam, when the Messiah was first promised, man re- 
deemed, and the serpent conquered. That protevan- 
gelium was a provided salvation for all men, for infants 
and for pious heathen. The marvel is that these pas- 



FOR MAN'S REDEMPTION. W 

sages had not long ago suggested this view of the re- 
demption of mankind when in unity. Thus the doc- 
trine of Christ's atonement, of the salvation of many by 
the offering and acceptance of One who should suffer 
for all, is simplified and brought within our human 
apprehension. The Divine law was vindicated. The 
Divine purposes, the calling and election of God, are 
illustrated and brought within the range of man's idea 
of righteousness. Heaven's saving grace was not limited 
to a few, but provided for all. Federal ruin was met 
by federal salvation. Jesus Christ became the Head of 
the Church, by being its Founder ; the Judge of the 
world, by being its Saviour ; the King of His glorified 
saints, by having raised them to sainthood ; passing 
through the grave and gate of death He purchased im- 
mortality for all believers. 

He did and suffered all that was necessary to save the 
first man in unity as fully and as effectually as if He 
had suffered and died for each one separately. Upon 
the woman of Samaria He so impressed this truth that 
she was anxious for her friends to understand it with her, 
in order that they might say : ' ' For we have heard Him 
ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the 
Saviour of the world " (St. John 4 : 42), not the Saviour 
of Jews alone, but of Samaritans and Eomans, of the 
world. Thus Archbishop Trench : " The first half of 
the Book of Acts gives evidence how slowly, with how 
many reluctancies, on the part of some, it broke upon 
their minds that theirs was a commission as wide as the 
world, that their Lord was not King of Israel only, but 
1 Saviour of the world ' as well " ("Studies in Gospels," 
p. 136). And our exposition makes natural and rational 
why and how He could become so great a Saviour. It 
removes all difficulty about the number of the saved, 



100 THE LAMB SLAIN 

the seeming favoritism and the exclusion of any, and 
presents Him as the Saviour of mankind as truly as 
that Adam was their father. Thus the redemption of 
one sinner cost as much as the redemption of the world. 
Thus He tasted death for every one, for Adam and for 
all his children. Dying for them when in solidaric 
unity, He opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all be- 
lievers, so that all may be saved if they will. His power 
of an endless life reaches out to all men that He may 
impart it to them ; to Adam, Seth, and Noah, to Mel- 
chisedec, Abraham, and Moses, to those in priestly 
lines, to Job, to Socrates, to Indian sages as well as to 
Christians. Whosoever seeks to do and to know His 
will, to him shall be given of His truth and His salva- 
tion. The Eev. Dr. S. H. Turner, late professor in the 
General Theological Seminary, says : u St. Athanasius, 
following the Septuagint, and expressing the Hebrew 
with more exactness than is done in our translation, 
renders Prov. 8 : 22, The Lord created me a beginning of 
His ways, which is equivalent to the assertion that the 
Father prepared me a body, and He created me for man 
on behalf of their salvation. Thus the Divine Logos, 
or Wisdom, became a Divine Saviour. He who created 
the world saved the world. He gave his life a ransom 
for it. Not His incarnation, but His death atoned for 
the sins of man/' With St. Athanasius agrees St. 
Athenagoras that the Lord appointed the Logos the 
first of His wavs in His work, or the first step in His 
plan of salvation (Athenag. " Sup." x. 42 ; Justin Martyr, 
" Dial, cum Tryph.," 61). St. Anselm is the great author- 
ity with many, but his Cur Deus Homo has a scholastic 
basis. It necessitates a Deus Homo in order to provide 
for the salvation of fallen angels. " He would believe, 
that he might understand," which is right, but "he 



FOR MAN'S REDEMPTION. 101 

would not seek to understand, that lie might believe," 
which is wrong. It is curious to read Dante, a genera- 
tion after Anselm, that our " Saviour, by His suffering 
under the sentence, not of Herod, but of Pilate, who 
was the delegate of the Eoman Emperor, acknowledged 
and confirmed the supremacy of that Emperor over the 
whole world ; for if all mankind were become sinners 
through the sin of Adam, no punishment that was in- 
flicted by one who had a right of jurisdiction over less 
than the whole human race, could have been sufficient to 
satisfy for the sins of all men I" Again : " It was be- 
hooveful that the government of earth should be in the 
best possible condition at the coming of Christ ; there- 
fore the imperial city and Eoman people were ordained 
for this accomplishment."* It was a Middle Age 
attempt at the solidaric unity of man for his salva- 
tion. Before this and since, others have attempted to 
explain the difficulty which was seen in the substitu- 
tion of one for the offence of many. Anselm believed 
without understanding it : Origen believed in the 
hope of understanding it ; Augustine believed in the 
calling and salvation of all the baptized, and Calvin 
in the salvation of all the elect. Here the unbeliever 
charges injustice and partiality against the provision of 
salvation. He does not see what the Bible so clear- 
ly teaches — viz., the sin of mankind while the race 
was in federal or solidaric unity, and the pledged sal- 
vation while the same race was in federal or solidaric 



* Carey's Dante, Purg. c. 32; Paradise, c. 6; Gonvito ; De 
Monarchia, b. 2. While reading the proof of this paper, I have 
examined the late Prof. Hitchcock's sermon on Eternal Atone- 
ment. Able as it is, it hardly meets the objections which I have 
sought to remove— i.e., scientifically and historically. 



102 THE LAMB SLAIN 

unity. Jesus made a propitiation for the sins of the 
whole world. The substitution was a righteous substi- 
tution — viz., of a perfect Man for a sinful man, and 
being accepted while man was a unit, all his children 
were thereby put in the same Kedeemed position. So 
in a state of slavery, the offspring are relegated to the 
condition occupied by the parents. Birth condition is 
recognized by all. Poverty and ignorance belong to 
those who are low-born, until they are lifted, or lift 
themselves, into wealth and culture. The Son of God 
was born, suffered, died, and rose from the dead, that 
He might lift mankind into the spiritual wealth and 
culture of the Kingdom of Heaven. If the Old Testa- 
ment narrates the conquests of Satan, the New Testa- 
ment proclaims the triumphs of Jesus Christ. It re- 
veals His incarnation, it recounts His sufferings, His 
death, His resurrection, His ascension, and then heralds 
His coronation with the Eedeemed. 

About a generation since, a book entitled " The Con- 
flict of Ages" was published in Boston, which attempted 
to solve the difficulties of a partial salvation according 
to the doctrine of predestination. Its solution was 
based upon the assumption that man had existed in a 
previous state, and that the beings who peopled this 
world were those who had failed in the moral trial to 
which they had been subjected there. In a word, that 
we are the damned of such former existence, and that 
all who are saved in this second probation are so much 
clear gain upon that first failure. St. Origen was 
quoted as favoring the notion, and considerable learning 
was shown in illustrating it. The writer admitted that 
it only removed, did not explain, the idea of uncondi- 
tional election and reprobation — but removed it to the 
right place — viz., the eternity of a pre-existence and 



FOE MAN'S REDEMPTION. 103 

moral failure in it. He frankly admitted that personal 
consciousness and identity did not suggest such a trial 
in a previous life. It was only a theory to humanize 
a harsher theory. Alas ! we cannot, nor need we try, to 
reconcile the oppugnancy of theological metaphysics 
with the humanity of man and the everlasting benefi- 
cence of God. He reveals Himself as our Father, in 
His Word and in Jesus Christ our Lord. 

For twenty years I have thought about the explana- 
tion suggested in this paper, as harmonizing the salva- 
tion of man with the justice of God, atonement for sin 
with eternal principles of righteousness. And I submit 
that the redemption of mankind in unity, by a promised 
Saviour, illustrates truth and goodness, love and equity. 
It needs no system of foreordination and election to say 
why some accept and others reject the provided salvation 
for all men ; that depends upon their will. All who 
feel after God, truly seeking Him, may find salvation 
through Jesus Christ. Hence, the Divine Spirit was 
given, and was said to strive with man even before 
the Deluge destroyed incorrigible sinners (Gen. 6 : 3). 
Already the dispensation of grace had commenced ; not, 
indeed, in the Pentecostal fulness, but in such way as 
to enable men to love, obey, and worship their Creator. 
Very early they assembled for worship and calling upon 
Him (Gen. 4 : 26 ; Jude 14). He who made man pro- 
vided for the redemption of the lost, and instructed 
them how to serve Him loyally. This last fact is taught 
in the inscriptions of Babylonia and in the Bible. (See 
Chapter I. of this Part.) The Divine promise of the 
Sin-healer was early made, and preparation for Him 
w r as commenced. Men, before Abraham and Moses, as 
afterward, enjoyed communion with God and learned 
to please Him. This was their privilege from the days 
5* 



104 THE LAMB SLAIN 

of Seth to Noah, from Noah to Sargon of Agane, from 
Apepi to Cyrus. I see God worshipped in the sacrifice 
of the lamb substituted for Isaac, aud in the first Pass- 
over victims ; in the daily morning and evening sacri- 
fices on the altars of Israel, and on the altars of Baby- 
lonia and of Egypt ; each, more or less purely, typified 
and heralded the Lamb slain from the foundation of 
the world. The sacrificial rites of mankind, from the 
offering of Abel to that offering when the veil of the 
Temple was rent in twain, and Jesus exclaimed, " It is 
finished !" all more or less clearly expressed the deep 
want and thought of humanity ; its feeling after God, 
and its endeavors to propitiate Him and secure His 
favor. All soul-struggles found their end and goal in 
Gethsemane ; all sacrifices found their meaning and 
fulfilment upon Calvary, and in the Lamb there slain. 
In His bitter cry of Divine abandonment the world's 
sin was done away ! The blood shed from His broken 
heart sealed the Eedemption of Man ; made reconcilia- 
tion for iniquity ; brought in everlasting righteousness, 
and perfected the long chain of prophecy. Moreover, 
it was as effectually saving when the promise of it was 
first made as when Jesus died upon the Cross. He 
tasted death for every man. The Just became the Sub- 
stitute for the unjust, and ransomed us with His blood. 
This also illustrates how His sacrifice atoned " not only 
for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men." He 
was " the propitiation for the sins of the whole world " 
(1 St. John 2 : 2). Forensically dying for all in unity, 
He died for each one severally. Original sin was ex- 
piated by Divine atonement, and the redemption was 
without limit or partiality, fully and effectually for all 
who would accept it, both of the living and the dead. 
For, after paying the penalty of sin, the Just suffering 



FOR MAN'S' REDEMPTION. 105 

for the unjust, also " went and preached to the spirits 
in prison," or, as the R. V. renders it, " unto the spir- 
its in prison, which aforetime were disobedient" (1 Pet. 
3 : 18-20). This surely means that He offered accept- 
ance of salvation to those in Hades, who in this life had 
not believed, or had not been taught concerning Him, 
in order that they also might believe in Him. This 
preaching of our Lord to the departed, between His 
crucifixion and resurrection, seems to make for the 
utmost possible efficacy of His saving work, and that 
He would have all to know what He had done for them. 
Its blessings were conditioned upon belief and accept- 
ance, so He Himself descends to Hades and preaches 
salvation to the spirits in prison, that the doors thereof 
might be opened and believers there set free ; yea, that 
in Christ all should be made alive, and, quickened by 
the Spirit, should live forevermore. I see nothing to 
restrict the full meaning of the words that Christ died 
for all, and that whosoever will may take of the water 
of life. He was lifted up to draw all men unto Him. 
(See able paper by Dean Plumptre in his " Spirits in 
Prison.") 

Moreover, after His ascension to where He was before 
He paid our ransom price, our Lord seat the Holy 
Spirit of truth to guide man into all truth, and to per- 
fect His saving work in the heart. "'Tis He that 
works to will; and He also works to do." Every 
needed agency has been employed to complete His work 
and make it effectual. No element or useful adjunct 
was omitted. There was the preparation of millen- 
niums, from the prophecy of Enoch to the prophecy of 
Malachi. There was the dispensation of Moses. There 
was the preaching of the prophets, from Samuel to John 
Baptist. There was the speaking oracle, followed by the 



10(3 ORIGINAL REDEMPTION. 

clearer voice of the Holy Ghost. There were the life, 
the teachings, the death, the resurrection, the ascension 
of Jesus Christ, followed by the descending Spirit, who 
should bring all His wonderful works and spoken words 
to remembrance, from the baptism at Jordan to the 
coronation at Olivet. God left nothing wanting of 
redemptive value to mankind. 

Jesus Christ was the most perfect flower of all 
humanity, the embodiment of its graces and its virtues. 
After His saving work, He left not His followers 
orphans, but made them citizens of a new kingdom, and 
enjoined upon His disciples to preach His Gospel and 
extend His kingdom through all the world. It was a 
never-to-be-forgotten duty to administer the Christian 
offices to the end of time. Himself would ever be with 
His people, and receive all who should come to Him ; 
none should be rejected. While bodily absent, He 
would prepare for them a mansion in the Father's 
House. Thus the Lamb slain purchased Redemption 
and Eternal Blessedness for all believers. This is the 
true idea of the survival of the fittest — viz., believers in 
Him, For He says, the hour is coming when all that 
are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come 
forth ; they that have done good, unto the resurrection 

of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the resur- 
rection of judgment. Again He says : He that believeth 
in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and 
whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. 
I will raise him up at the last day. It is the redemption 
and coronation of all believers, through the Lamb that 
was slain from the foundation of the world. Man's 
part is to love Him, believe in Him, and live in Him. 
With deep pathos He remonstrated with them that 
would not come to Him, that they might have life. 
And He went and preached to them who aforetime were 
disobedient, that they also might believe in Him. By 
His sacrificial death He would draw all men unto Him. 



THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM A REALM OF 
RANSOMED SOULS. 

My kingdom is not of this world, said our Lord. Thy kingdom 
come, He taught us to pray. He called you unto His kingdom 
and glory, said an apostle. Lord, remember me, when Thou 
comest into Thy kingdom, prayed the dying penitent. Thou wast 
slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy blood, of every 
tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and madest them unto 
our God a kingdom and priests, sang the four and twenty elders in 
heaven, as they fell down before the Lamb (Kev. 5 : 9, 10). 

Such is the kingdom which our Lord bids us seek 
before all other seeking, and for whose perfect establish- 
ment He became the Lamb slain, and the Lamb glori- 
fied. It is a new kingdom and a spiritual kingdom. 
Drummond, in his " Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World,' ' has happily shown that the organic kingdom 
is based upon, but not developed from the inorganic 
world ; for from the dead the living cannot come. Life 
is not a product of inorganic matter. A dead world can- 
not produce a living thing, neither animal nor vege- 
table. Nor can immortal souls be produced from mere 
animal life. The highest physical and mental perfec- 
tion is not immortality. Only the soul possesses soul 
life. Culture, indeed, may lead to morality, as well as 
to aesthetics. Yet culture is eternally different from 



108 THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM 

spirituality, and falls short of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ. 

As, therefore, matter and life demand a Creator, so 
soul and spirit, or the immortal part of man, demand a 
Creator. And as the former constitute the two king- 
doms of nature, so the souls of men constitute what we 
may call the world of spirit. The soul is neither evolved 
nor developed, according to Scripture nor according to 
science, from matter, nor from mere animal life, but 
rather is the creation, impartation or gift of God. 
Thus we understand Gen. 1 : 26, 27 ; 2 : 7 ; 1 Cor. 15 : 
45. The breath of God breathed into man made him 
an immortal being, more than a living creature. It-en- 
dowed him with a nobler quality than other living crea- 
tures possessed, and it linked him with his Creator. 
Thus Job says : " The Spirit of God hath made me, and 
the breath of the Almighty hath given me life" (Job 
33 : 4). Hence man is held responsible for his conduct, 
responsible in a way that brutes are not. Hence he is 
punished for bad acts, not merely because they are bad, 
but because they were committed from bad motives. 
The moral difference is radical between a man's killing 
his brother man and a dog's killing a sheep ; between 
stealing to satisfy hunger, and sinning through lust and 
passion. Sin pollutes and debases the soul as well as 
the community. Hence laws are enacted against crime, 
and governments are organized to enforce them. Because 
the souls or spirits of men are immortal, it was from 
the foundation of the world appointed and provided to 
constitute a kingdom of souls, of souls redeemed and 
glorified, which kingdom should be eternal. 

The prophet Obadiah predicted the coming of such a 
kingdom (v. 21). Daniel declared that the God of 
heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be 



A REALM OF RANSOMED SOULS. 109 

destroyed (2 : 44). It shall stand forever. King 
Nebuchadnezzar praised the Most High whose dominion 
is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom from gen- 
eration to generation (4 : 34). Darius in a decree pro- 
claimed the God of Daniel to be the living God, and 
His kingdom not to be destroyed to the end of time 
(6 : 26). Daniel also predicted the Coming of the 
Ancient of Days, whose kingdom is an everlasting king- 
dom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him. It 
was to bring in everlasting righteousness (7 : 13, 14, 
22, 27 ; 9 : 24). Similar predictions abound in the 
Psalms, which affirm that " a sceptre of equity is the 
sceptre of God's kingdom" (45 : 6 ; 103 : 19 ; 145 : 13). 
The establishment of a spiritual kingdom forms the 
warp and woof, the foundation and apex of the New 
Testament. Its coming is prayed for in the prayer 
given by our Lord ; its seeking is enjoined by Him as 
the first and essential duty ; He preached its gospel and 
unfolded its mysteries. It was not of this world ; it 
was within the hearts of the regenerated, and all were 
invited to enter it, and possess its spirit. The redeemed 
and glorified saints rejoiced, because they had been 
made into a kingdom and priests in it (Rev. 5 : 10). 
The reign of the spiritual kingdom was the reign of 
righteousness. Arising out of the mountains of Judea, 
it should fill and dominate the earth (Dan. 2 : 34, 35). 
For admittance into it, the crucified malefactor earnestly 
besought the expiring Lord. 

He did not become Man to create a new world, but 
to regenerate and transform mankind ; to establish the 
reign of Grace over the realm of souls redeemed, and 
over the kingdom of souls to be glorified. Hence He 
" translates " sinful man out of the kingdom of darkness 
into the kingdom of light. The frequent use of this 



110 THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM 

word is for a purpose, not a fantasy ; to show the new 
conditions of those whom He translates ; to show that 
sin shall no longer reign over them ; it may be in them 
as a possibility, but shall not dominate them. They 
shall no longer be alienated from God and oppugnant 
toward Him, but in spiritual harmony, joy, and peace. 
In the light of His countenance and the smiles of His 
loving approval Christians find supreme delight. All 
things become new. The pleasures of the world no 
longer please. The rtierry dance, the lascivious look 
and touch, lose their charms. Fast living, midnight 
revels, worldly ambitions, social jealousies, have no place 
in the life of the sanctified. They seek those things 
which are above. Risen with Christ, they set their 
affections upon Him. His is a kingdom of right think- 
ing and of right living, a kingdom of righteousness, 
and of all that makes for it, and where our Lord reigns. 
Earth's poor in spirit are there, for they are rich toward 
God. Learned or ignorant in earthly knowledge, they 
are learned in Divine things. Indeed, all who enter 
there, go empty-handed, as some wise ancients taught, 
for their treasures go before them ; they were already 
laid up in heaven. Our great High Priest presented 
them to the King, and stood ready to introduce them 
to the kingdom of holy souls. Such, broadly stated, was 
the view of primitive Christians ; not, indeed, at the 
first, but they grew up to it after the Spirit of truth had 
opened unto them the Scriptures. 

Let us recall that memorable walk to Emmaus. Jesus 
had been crucified, and His disciples were deeply 
affected. Certain of them told Him, who had just 
risen, that they trusted the mighty Prophet would have 
redeemed and delivered Israel from the Roman power, 
and have restored again the kingdom to their own rulers 



A REALM OF RANSOMED SOULS. Ill 

(St. Luke 24 : 21 ; Acts 1 : 6). But soon they learned 
the perfect lesson. They appointed one to take the 
place of Judas, and numbered Matthias with the Apos- 
tles. Filled with the Holy Ghost, St. Peter declared 
that Jesus had been delivered to death by the determi- 
nate counsel and foreknowledge of God — a counsel deter- 
mined and foreknown since the promise of a Conqueror 
in Gen. 3 : 15, of whom David spoke, that His soul was 
not left in Hades, nor did the Holy One see corruption ; 
for God had raised Him up, and exalted Him to His 
right hand. Thus was fulfilled the promise of the 
Father ; thus was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost 
(Acts 2 : 22-34). Again St. Peter repeated the same 
truths touching the Prince of life, the predictions of 
the prophets, and the restoration of all things in a 
gracious covenant, whereby all families of the earth 
should be blessed (Acts 3 : 12-26). So in Hebrews we 
read that Jesus was the Surety of a better covenant, and 
that He is able to save to the uttermost them that come 
unto Him ; that Christ hath entered into heaven itself, 
now to appear before the face of God for man ; yet not 
to offer Himself again, since He had made one sacrifice 
for sins forever, thereby perfecting them that are sanc- 
tified (7 : 22, 25 ; 9 : 24, 28 ; 10 : 12-25). 

Now the results of such teaching were remarkable, 
and were illustrated in the daily life of the regenerate. 
Worldliness and self-seeking had become regnant, but 
Christians were distinguished by considerateness for one 
another, provoking unto love and good works, assem- 
bling together for Divine worship and instruction. The 
sign of the old covenant was not enough. It had toler- 
ated the sordid baseness of Sadducees for twenty years. 
Our Lord had been crucified by them. He taught His 
Apostles what to do, and how to proceed after His 



112 THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM 

departure ; how to organize a visible kingdom for the 
promotion and perpetuation of spiritual life. Hence 
those who received the Apostles' word were baptized 
into the new covenant, in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. On one day three 
thousand souls were thus covenanted. At another time 
five thousand believed the spoken word. These con- 
tinued steadfastly in the Apostles' teaching and fellow- 
ship, in the breaking of bread, and the prayers (R. V.). 
For the time, they became Christian socialists ; they 
were much together, had all things in common, sold 
their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, 
according as any man had need. And daily continuing 
steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking 
bread at home, they praised God, and had favor with all 
the people (Acts 2 : 42-47 ; 4 : 4). It is evident the 
first Christians were incorporated into a Brotherhood 
for mutual help, instruction, and encouragement. 
Probably they had never heard of the Pythagorean com- 
munity, but already they equalled, and even excelled 
that order in personal concern and helpfulness. Help- 
fulness was the distinguishing mark of primitive Chris- 
tians. They avoided all that tended to pervert them 
into self-seeking and worldly entanglements ; avoided 
all political intermeddling, which corrupted and de- 
stroyed the Pythagoreans. Very early Christians real- 
ized that their Lord's kingdom was not of this world, 
but far above it, and that their duty was to live in and 
for the kingdom of ransomed souls. 

Nevertheless, some evil men crept into their number, 
who were rebuked and reformed, or punished by expul- 
sion. Now a man and his wife suffered death by the 
judgment of God, for hypocrisy and lying to the Holy 
Ghost ; now Simon Magus was sharply reprimanded for 



A REALM OF RANSOMED SOULS. 113 

his sordid lust ; now an unclean liver was excommuni- 
cated. ; now Hymeneus, Philetus, and Alexander were 
delivered over to Satan, that they might learn not to 
blaspheme. Most emphatically did St. Paul caution 
his converts against the works of the flesh and all 
wrong-doing, warning them that thereby they would 
forfeit the eternal kingdom. And he enumerates " the 
fruit of the Spirit.' ' It is love, joy, peace, longsuffer- 
ing, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temper- 
ance — temperance in all things, in order to keep the 
body in subjection to the spirit. For they that are 
Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and 
lusts (Gal. 5 : 17-24). Neither doctrines nor duties 
change with the centuries. The Baptismal promise 
to-day means all that it meant in Apostolic times : re- 
nouncing the Devil and all his works ; renouncing the 
world and all worldliness ; renouncing the flesh, its 
lusts and enticements ; a death unto sin, and a new 
birth unto righteousness ; then, positively, to fight 
manfully under Christ's banner, and to continue His 
faithful soldier and servant unto the end of life. Thus 
wearing the cross precedes wearing the crown, and is 
preparation for it. Not otherwise can it be wan. Con- 
sider this address to the baptized adult : " And as for 
you, who have now by Baptism put on Christ, it is your 
part and duty, being made a child of God and of the 
light, by faith in Jesus Christ, to walk answerably to 
your Christian calling, and as becometh the children of 
light ; to follow the example of our Saviour Christ, and 
to be made like unto Him ; that as He died, and rose 
again for us, so should we, who are baptized, die from 
sin, and rise again unto righteousness ; continually 
mortifying all our evil and corrupt affections, and daily 
proceeding in all virtue and godliness of living." 



114 THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM 

In the office for Confirmation is the touching prayer 
for " the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Ghost to strengthen 
us daily with increase of the manifold gifts of grace ; 
the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of 
counsel and ghostly strength, the spirit of knowledge 
and true godliness ; and to be filled with the spirit of 
holy fear forever." What more is required? This — 
viz., sanctification for coronation. Every time the 
Christian commemorates the dying love of his Lord, he 
" offers and presents himself, soul and body, unto Him, 
to be a holy and living sacrifice ; that he and all others 
may worthily partake of the holy Communion, be filled 
with God's grace and heavenly benediction, and be 
made one body with Christ, that He may dwell in them 
and they in Him. ' ' 

Such are the sacramental duties of citizenship in the 
Christian kingdom. Nothing less is loyalty ; little 
more is possible in human beings ; for it demands the 
life, the soul, the all of every one. They are in the 
world, but translated far above the world. As in the 
realm of nature, the blooming plant is rooted in the 
earth, but buds and flowers above it ; as in the realm of 
mind, the intellectual range soars above all material 
limits ; so the redeemed souls of men should soar ever 
upward to their exalted Head ; seeking for the highest 
knowledge and the loftiest attainments ; seeking to know 
God by communion with Him ; to love Him for the gift 
of His Son, and to obey Him in all things. To know, 
to love, to obey, these require thought, time, and atten- 
tion. These we must give willingly if we would really 
know God ; so to know Him as to love Him, so to love 
Him as to obey Him, so to obey Him as to be loyal 
citizens of His kingdom. It requires all the time which 
can be devoted to it. Months and years are necessary 



A REALM OF RANSOMED SOULS. 115 

to learn a human language ; longer yet to learn the lan- 
guage of heaven, and to study its incomparable litera- 
ture. In celestial studies eternity will be occupied, 
wherefore should we go to school with Christ in time ; 
we should become like Him ; be happy with Him, and 
enjoy the company of His saints. For we are called to 
he saints. Pythagoras enjoined his followers to seek to 
become like God, an impossible attainment. Jesus says : 
Be perfect like your Father ; learn of Me ; follow Me ; 
love Me. The millions who have done this prove 
that you and I may do it. We all may learn to know 
somewhat of the true God, and of Jesus Christ given 
for our salvation. We must be transformed and con- 
formed to His standard ; cherish and be nourished by 
His Spirit ; be in harmony with His people, and help 
forward His kingdom. Surely the Eedeemed and saved 
will endeavor to put others in the way of salvation. 
Bought with a price, ransomed with His blood, we are 
not our own, but His who purchased us, and translated 
us into His kingdom. Our citizenship is in heaven, 
and to heaven we owe allegiance. We are placed in a 
new and spiritual environment. We are fed by soul 
food, and only in the realm of souls can we be sustained 
and grow. Spiritual nourishment and growth go 
together. It is with open face, by direct looking at 
Him, that we behold the glory of the Lord ; that we 
become changed into the same image and character 
from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. This is 
also expressed as " living by faith in the Son of God ; 
always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord 
Jesus, that His life may be manifested in us ; so to live 
and act as though Christ lived in us," animating and 
directing our conduct. This is the reign of the spir- 
itual over the material ; the triumph of the soul over 



116 1HE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM 

the body ; disregarding visible and transient things for 
the invisible and eternal. It is also called a life hid 
with Christ in God (2 Cor. 3, 4 ; Col. 3 : 3). 

Thus the regenerated soul, living in a spiritual en- 
vironment, is being prepared for the kingdom of the 
glorified. He has the assurance that, after the dissolu- 
tion of the body, he shall haye a building from God, a 
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. So 
he longs to be clothed upon with the habitation which 
is from heaven ; not merely to be unclothed, but clothed 
upon, that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life 
(2 Cor. 5, E. V.). This is a proper sequence : We de- 
sire not to die, not to become extinct, but to be per- 
fected in glory. Unlike Socrates, with whom eternal 
life was a speculation, or philosophic guess, the Chris- 
tian has the assurance and guarantee that what is mortal 
in him shall be swallowed up of life. Thus to die is 
eternal gain. It is the soul's coronation. 

Our statement and characterization of the spiritual 
kingdom accord with Scripture and other received 
standards, ancient and modern. They are the belief 
and profession of Christians to-day. Uses, indeed, may 
change, but not the doctrines of salvation. If the 
Church had not fallen short of her Lord's teachings, 
the gains of the first century of grace might have leav- 
ened the world. Nevertheless, the increase has been 
large, and in view of the overthrow of civilization by 
barbarians and the destruction of the old empire it has 
been very encouraging, as is the present outlook. But 
still there has been too much conformity in the Church 
with the world ; Christians have not been sufficiently 
mindful of St. Peter's declaration, that they are a pecul- 
iar people, chosen for God's own possession, and they 
should show forth the excellencies of an elect race. 



.1 REALM OF RANSOMED SOULS. 117 

The Church should now be just as intolerant of sin in 
her members as she ever was ; just as revolutionary and 
reformatory of the evils around her. She owes no more 
respect to the possessor of wealth than St. James 
teaches ; no more regard for a poor man who breaks his 
promise than St, Paul teaches his son Onesimus ; no 
more tenderness toward lukewarm or erring members 
who do not repent than her Lord taught touching the 
seven churches of Asia. To be a Christian is to be 
loyal to Christ, without any false compromise. It roots 
out all inordinate love of the world, and all conformity 
with it. It enthrones Jesus Christ upon the highest 
place and keeps Him there, regnant above all and in all. 
Such is the Christian who holds communion with God, 
such the brotherhood that has heirship in His kingdom. 

Hence arises true brotherhood with man. He who 
loves God will love his brother also. For the Church 
is not a mere club, but a Brotherhood, and a community 
of souls having sympathy one with another. It is not 
a private order for the profit of a few having personal 
objects to accomplish, or for gain, like a joint stock 
company. It is appointed and endowed for the salva- 
tion of souls. Its business is to bring men to Christ. 
Its duty is to teach men about Christ, and help them to 
receive Him. The Church must not withhold the 
Gospel from any one, but rather compel them to come 
to her rich sources of blessing. She has no right to a 
prejudice against any one, unless he rejects and refuses 
to receive her Lord. For her commission embraces all 
mankind, and to make disciples of all nations. Our 
Lord would draw all men unto Him. His followers 
must assist in drawing them. 

The one distinguishing mark of His earthly life, 
which lifts Him far above contemporary Pharisees and 



118 THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM 

Sadducees and the failing Church of Israel, was His 
care for the poor, healing their sick, helping the help- 
less, and preaching the Gospel to them. His presence 
raised men to* a higher standard of aspiration and attain- 
ment. It gave a new impulse to humanity, which 
awakened it from the slumber and sin and death of 
ages, and incited men to concern for the erring and un- 
fortunate, for aged persons and for little children. 
Wherever Jesus Christ touched mankind, He made 
them better and lifted them heavenward. There was 
that in Him and in His teaching which arrested atten- 
tion and reached the conscience. His look, His voice, 
His way of saying things, convinced men of the truth 
He spoke and of His authority and supernal character. 
Pilate and the chief priests felt this. Even Judas, 
whom no sacrament could sanctify and wean from his 
sordid self-seeking, felt it deeply, and died in conse- 
quence. Men who discard sacraments, and men who 
assist in daily celebrations, must rise to the sanctifica- 
tion and Divine relation of true fellowship with Jesus, 
or they will fail to partake of the Bread of Heaven. 
Surely, while depriving themselves of the grace of the 
kingdom, men cannot attain to its graces. The Chris- 
tian kingdom is the place and Christian offices are the 
means to obtain spiritual blessings. So sacraments 
should be sanctifying in their effect, inciting men to do 
the will of God and aiding them to do it to one another ; 
thus becoming outward signs of inward character, visi- 
ble means of spiritual attainment, and witnessing to an 
indwelling Christ who reigns in the soul. Thus His 
kingdom increases, and its members prepare for citizen- 
ship in heaven. They endure the cross before gaining 
the crown — an eternal inheritance. 

No other system of religion ever produced such re- 



A REALM OF RANSOMED SOULS. 119 

suits. At best, it only affected the conduct, it did not 
inspire and purify the heart. To attain the perfection 
of Buddha was to be absorbed into Nirvana and lose 
conscious personality. The philosopher Seneca pain- 
fully illustrates how little stoicism could sustain one 
under misfortune, in exile, and in death. He presents 
a sad contrast when compared with St. John in Patmos. 
So in Cicero we see the spiritual poverty of eclecticism. 
Cato and Caesar among the greatest of later Eomans, 
even admitting they died while promoting their coun- 
try's welfare, bear no comparison with St. Paul in his 
departing triumph : " I have fought the good fight ; T 
have finished my course ; I have kept the faith ; hence- 
forth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, 
which the Lord shall give me at that day !" Alas ! 
Roman philosophy made no such promise ; it only 
taught conduct and culture in life, with a possibility of 
feasting with departed heroes. It had no spiritual 
future, no eternal abode with the Heaven-Father. It 
failed in all that makes for noblest manhood. So with 
science to-day. Limited to phenomena and their laws, 
it cannot fathom spiritual essences nor the deeps of 
eternity. Soul qualities and attributes which prove the 
life of God within man are not the things with which 
science has to deal ; they are above it, and belong to the 
spiritual kingdom. It is as surely another realm as 
that life differs from matter. The realm and laws of 
the soul differ from those of phenomena, yet they are 
just as real. An indwelling Christ may be as truly 
known as heat in steam or as warmth in the sunshine, 
and men will feel it to be so. " The sweetest visits of 
God's grace ask but an open soul." The great Socrates 
left guesses and speculations for his disciples ; Jesus 
Christ left precepts, doctrines, promises, and spiritual 
6 



J 20 THE CELESTIAL KINGDOM, 

powers for His, and by His death purchased eternal life 
for them. He went before to prepare a place for them. 
It is a mansion in the Father's house, a seat, if not a 
throne, in His kingdom. And this is just as needful 
for souls as a world is needed for bodies, for the realm 
of spirits is as real as any earthly kingdom. Hence the 
Apostle's readiness to depart and be with Christ, in 
order that he might receive spiritual coronation in the 
kingdom of spirits. 

There are the myriads who have come out of great 
tribulation, from the discipline of earth to the glory of 
heaven, having washed their robes white in the blood 
of the Lamb. There are the heroes who lived and died 
for Christ. Therefore are they before the throne of 
God, and serve Him day and night in His Temple. 
They hunger no more, neither do they thirst, nor can 
any evil befall them ; for the Lamb is their Shepherd 
who will lead them into all pleasant places. As the 
earth was peopled by the sons of Noah, and divided 
among them according to their generations, so in the 
heaven] v kingdom multitudes of all nations and kin- 
dreds, peoples and tongues are clothed in white robes, 
with palms in their hands ; and they sing the song of 
salvation and glory unto God and to the Lamb forever ! 
They have no fear of loss or of forfeiture, for the old 
serpent is conquered, and can hurt men no more. Their 
home is " where an enemy cannot enter, and whence a 
friend never went away." It is a kingdom of ransomed 
souls and of spiritual enjoyments, such as none but 
Jesus could establish. It is not a development of phi- 
losophy, not a product of progressive thought, but a 
purchase and a supernal gift to the sanctified, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. 



CONCLUSION. 

Our examination has disclosed five important ele- 
ments of religion in the first ages : 1. The general ob- 
servance of a seventh-day Sabbath, the week of seven 
days being a measure of time, and seven a sacred num- 
ber. 2. Significant ideas of a coming Saviour and 
world-wide expectations of Him. 3. Immortality, 
which cannot be affirmed of animal life, was generally 
believed in, and man had deep longings for it. 4. Sal- 
vation by sacrifice ; preparation for One promised in 
Eden is the grand fact of grace and of history ; He was 
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 
5. A spiritual kingdom for redeemed and glorified souls 
was to be established, which should have no end. 

In Part I. we saw that men of the first ages believed 
in a Divine Creator, His providence and hearing of 
prayer, in evil angels and the fall of man ; that by 
penitence, supplication and sacrificial worship they 
sought to propitiate Him and obtain His favor here and 
hereafter. Add the points presented in Part II. and 
we find ten principal elements of religion in men of the 
earliest ages ; ten streams of a great river which water 
the city of our God ; ten lines of circumvallation which 
defend it. To say that " this was all error, super- 
stition, human devising," is about as wise as for a 
lunatic to pronounce all other men insane, for all the 
probabilities point the other way. It was not a part of 
my plan to treat upon the fitness of things, the moral 



122 CONCLUSION. 

consciousness and subjective adaptations to objective 
realities. This has been well done by others. Ours has 
been the harder task of sifting long-buried records, 
studying their meaning and weighing results. 

We have verified the proofs of what Bishop Butler 
assumed in the " Analogy," that religion was taught to 
men in the first ages — probably by Divine Inspiration. 
M. Lenormant suggests a series of Eevelations. The 
first men practised religious worship before they could 
have evolved or developed it. Very early they had 
more than what is known as " natural religion ;" they 
had the seventh day of Eest ; they had Divine Instruc- 
tion ; they had profound longings for and expectations 
of a Saviour and of Immortality ; their bloody sacrifices 
and their Avatars foreshadowed the slain Lamb of God ? 
and in various ways they sought, more or less spiritually, 
to found and to people a realm of righteous souls. 
Hence it behooves us to examine the facts of human 
history as well as the laws of nature, before we reject 
the testimony of universal mankind and of the Bible. 
The true science of this world cannot antagonize God 
and His Word, for He is the Author of both. In both 
we should ever seek to know, so that we may under- 
stand, and to understand that we may believe. 

Science deals not with spirit. Men were religious 
before they understood the laws of nature. Do we now 
understand them all ? Put the first temple or the first 
pyramid as early as you please, religion is found before 
either— man worshipping God. We might easily have 
multiplied our illustrations as to the consensus of early 
history touching religion. In a pretty wide sweep we 
have produced evidences from Assyria, Babylonia, and 
ancient Egypt, proving that primitive man was a wor- 
shipper of what stood to him for God, and having hopes 



CONCLUSION. 123 

and aspirations for Immortality. The largest ruins are 
those which demonstrate the early religiousness of man, 
suggesting a Divine Architect in creation, and a Divine 
Person in the Eedemption of man. The sages taught 
it ; the poets sang it ; it is the law and essence of his 
being ; it is the solace of his life. 

We cannot evolve the round of Christian duties from 
the worship of ghosts, nor Christianity from the wreck 
of ancient faiths. It comes to us with a " thus saith 
the Loud." As a product of humanity, however en- 
lightened, it could not be of authority and obligation. 
It could not teach a life to come, nor guide us unto the 
life everlasting. Christianity does more ; it is the guide 
of our conduct, our support in sorrow and disappoint- 
ment, our solace in the hour of death, and it bridges 
the two worlds with a promise, with a preparation, with 
a company of angels to conduct the redeemed soul to 
his Lord and Saviour. This is the outcome of a 
Father's love, who has provided for all the soul's needs 
and longings to be satisfied. Hence the duty and priv- 
ilege of reciprocal love in man. It cannot be too ardent 
and confiding, nor too reverent and profound. As our 
Father, He requires this, love and honor, loyalty and 
devotion. Hence the prophets suffered and the martyrs 
died. For this His children pray. The Infinite, 
Eternal, and Omnipotent Lord is worthy of our supreme 
worship, obedience, and faith. The redeemed would 
die for Him who died for them. It is the soul's answer 
to the Saviour of the soul. The love which purchased 
redemption guarantees it. He who promises immor- 
tality has burst the portals of the tomb. His is an open 
grave. The promise and the attestation go together. 
" Wherefore, seeing these things are so, what ought we 
not to do to attain wisdom and virtue in this life, since 



124 CONCLUSION. 

the prize is so glorious and the hope so great?" No 
duty is too onerous to secure such a boon. Yet duty 
arising from love is never onerous, for affection sweetens 
labor and even sorrow. It is the elixir of life. Infinite 
love prompted the salvation of finite man. So he re- 
turns the love of his heart to the Saviour of his soul, 
supreme confidence, trust, and belief in Him. Thus 
he is made a citizen of the spiritual kingdom. 

Now, with all this, the science which seeks to sweep 
away the foundations of Christianity has nothing to do 
and nothing in common. The thought of the possible 
evolution of the religion of Jesus Christ from human 
consciousness or from human development begins with 
imperfect views of history, imperfect views of science, 
and imperfect views of the origin and destiny of man. 
It eliminates the Heaven-Father and the Immortality of 
man. Instead of such a Being and such a destiny, 
science at best offers us a guess and a blank ! Death 
an eternal Darkness, and Heaven an eternal Silence ! 

Our argument is for intelligent readers, who seek to 
know why they believe in Christianity rather than in 
the so-called religion of science, and who want to know 
the testimony of mankind before accepting agnosticism 
or any theory of negations in exchange for the eternal 
hopes and blessed promises of the Gospel. This general 
belief of primitive man amounts to a demonstration of 
Eeligion, of Eedemption, and of Immortality. Every 
one, whether he feels it or not, has a deep interest in 
the future of himself ; and " the consequences will be 
what they will be," in spite of his opinions. With the 
light of Divine Revelation, agnosticism or know-noth- 
ingism will not excuse indifference to personal religion 
and a title to admission among redeemed souls. Nor 
can our denials change the final outcome. The unfold- 



EXCLUSION. 125 

ings of eternity will go on whether or no we prepare for 
it. These are 

" Truths that wake to perish never ; 

Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor, 

Nor Man, nor Boy, 

N.or all that is at enmity with joy, 

Can utterly abolish or destroy !" 

" An infinite happiness or an infinite woe awaits every 
man hereafter." We cannot escape it. Be it ours to 
learn to ascribe " Blessing, and honor, and glory, and 
power, unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and 
unto the Lamb for ever and ever." (Eev. 5 : 13.) 




THE INDIAN GOD KRISHNA DESTROYING THE SERPENT.— CoUman. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: July 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-21 it 



r"io< 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 501 580 7 



